Meet Mudi Sama, the guitar star creating his own exciting path in indie music

You need only listen to Mudi Sama‘s excellent single ‘Bad Life’ to see that the London artist quite happily wears his influences on his sleeves. The song zips along with spiky guitars that feel like a callback to Bloc Party‘s Silent Alarm. It becomes clear throughout our interview that the band’s frontman, Kele Okereke, has been a guiding light in Sama’s musical journey so far.

That track features on his upcoming debut EP Will I Make It Out Alive?, and it’s joined by the woozy ‘Pretty Soon’, which sees Sama reflect on a childhood friendship while growing up in Lagos, before they reconnected in East London.

Though born in Britain, Sama moved to Nigeria as a child before making his return to the UK as a teeenager. It was around this time, he explains, that a love of guitar music – largely honed through watching endless YouTube videos of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – was born.

Now, with his first EP on the way, Sama is carving his path to becoming an indie star and a guitar hero in his own right.

You can read our whole Q&A with Mudi Sama and listen to him via our Play Next playlist on Spotify below.

How’s things, Mudi? I saw you were at one of Oasis’ Heaton Park shows recently – how was it?

Oh man, it was the best show ever. I’ve seen so many gigs and that is probably the best gig I will ever see in my life. How much time do we have? I’m a late Oasis fan and I got into them in the last three of four years because I used to be a model and one of my mates was playing What’s The Story... when we had a shoot in Manchester. It was on repeat and I thought this is insane. I got stuck in properly and I loved Liam’s solo stuff too. There’s no bollocks with Liam either, he’s got the most insane aura you could possibly expect from a frontman.

As you say, we could talk about Oasis for time eternal. But we won’t, because you’ve got your debut EP Will I Make It Out Alive? out next month. Excited?

Yeah! It was written a while ago but obviously as an artist a big part of it is figuring out how to present the project and getting the right people on board to help with that. I love all the songs, I love the title and I feel like it ‘s a great first offering for where my mind was at the time when I made it. Because it’s been over a year now since the last song was made for the EP was made, so it’s been a while and I’m just happy that people will hear it and I want to see how it’s received. There’s a song on there called ‘Bad Life’ which leans into heavy drums and rock and it’s gone down really well, so that’s great.

You mentioned your love of the EP’s title. What does it mean to you?

It’s an overarching sentiment in my life. It’s the only way to encapsulate how I feel most of the time, whether that’s in regards to interpersonal relationships or situations I find myself in every day. I feel for the most part that I’m on the edge of a cliff and wondering where I go from there. Most of the songs on the EP tell that story and I want to expand on it for the next one.

What was your gateway into discovering guitar music?

It was definitely the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I don’t wanna write off Kid Cudi’s Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven album. With the Chili Peppers I’ve never fallen in love with anything as much as I fell in love with John Frusciante. That really expanded my mind. And of course Bloc Party too, because Kid Cudi and Kele Okereke played guitar, they made rock and it helped someone like me to feel like, ‘OK, I can do this as well’.

How inspiring is it to you that Kele reached and continues to reach the heights that he did in British music?

It’s insurmountable. I don’t know what other word to use! Even seeing him again in Manchester last week was crazy. What actually makes it better too is, and I know this might sound selfish, but he’s Nigerian and I’m Nigerian, so it’s very much another Nigerian guy up there! He’s a trailblazer, but I also think there’s a lot of pressure on him because anytime anyone comes up in the UK and they’re a Black person doing something relatively rock he’s the first point of comparison. It puts pressure on the artist to live up to what he’s done. And that’s impossible, because no one is making another Silent Alarm, let’s be real please!

I’m a massive fan of Dev Hynes too, so let’s not forget him. I sometimes work with Fred Macpherson from Spector who is mates with Dev and he’s been telling me about working on Dev’s new Blood Orange album, which I can’t wait to hear. I saw him at the Barbican in 2023 with a full orchestra and it was incredible.

Is there a through-line to the EP or a message you’d like people to come away with?

When I was making it, I just wanted people to know that this was the purest feeling from me. I want it to be a foundation of who I am and I’m just putting my flag in the ground and I’m just gonna keep going.