A lot of artists say they started from nothing. For Berrybillionx, it was a laptop, a church, and a lot of hours spent figuring music out.
Born Samuel Nweke and known professionally as Berrybillionx, the Nigerian artist and songwriter got his start playing instrumentals during church services growing up. He was always around music, and slowly that turned into curiosity about how a song actually came together, what was going on under the surface. It stuck with him for years before it turned into anything serious.
Things shifted when he got on his sister’s laptop. No studio, no gear, no plan. He taught himself to make beats by messing around, spending hours chasing a sound and starting over when it didn’t work. Friends noticed and started linking him with artists who needed beats or someone to help shape their ideas. One introduction led to the next, and he ended up inside a working creative community, picking up production and songwriting from everyone he collaborated with. He officially kicked off his music journey in January 2021.
Ask him to describe his sound and he points back to where he’s from. It pulls from Afrobeats and Afro fusion, mixed with whatever he’s picked up from the people and places around him. He’s chasing records that make you move but still carry some weight, something you can actually sit with. It’s about the feeling for him. He wants people to catch a piece of themselves in the songs, whether that’s dancing through a bad night or getting pulled back to a specific person or moment.
His influences are the obvious heavy hitters, and he knows why they matter to him. Wizkid, Burna Boy, and Davido showed him how to carry African sound to a global audience without losing the roots. Fela Kuti taught him what it looks like to use music to actually tell a story. Past that, he watches how artists in every genre build things and takes the flows, melodies, and production ideas wherever he finds them.
Right now he’s working on FR2R Volume 2, with a free pop-up show planned for Birmingham. The details are still coming, but the invite’s out there.
The thing he keeps coming back to is pretty simple. You don’t need it all figured out before you start. He didn’t. You can find his music on Spotify, including the FR2R album, and keep up with him on Instagram.
