How Matt B’s “ALKEBULAN” Album Pays Homage To His African Ancestry

Matt B might have just dropped the most important project of his entire career. Titled ALKEBULAN, the Afrobeats album pays homage to his African ancestry in the most pure and genuine way. The 10-track project sees Matt embarking on a journey to reconnect with his heritage, all while balancing his personal life and family dynamics.

In describing himself, Matt B states he’s “a down-to-earth guy who does music.” He adds, “I really want to have an impact as much as possible, in a positive way.” 

For an independent artist, Matt B has accomplished what most musicians wish they could in their lifetime—a Grammy nomination. Last year, Matt B’s song “GIMME LOVE” featuring Eddy Kenzo was nominated for Best Global Music Performance at the 2023 Grammys. The two recording artists performed “Gimme Love” at the Eddy Kenzo Festival at Kololo Airstrip in Uganda to a crowd of more than 20,000 people, including Uganda’s Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja.

Coming from the bottom, Matt’s journey in the music industry is far from linear. His hope is that his story will inspire others to also follow their wildest dreams, to do whatever it takes to get there while staying true to who you are down to the core.

AllHipHop spoke with Matt B in downtown Los Angeles to discuss his background, getting signed in Japan, the new project, his journey to Africa and more.

AllHipHop: How would you describe your sound? 

Matt B: My sound is eclectic. I draw from so many different genres and facets of music. Even growing up in Chicago, I was homeschooled. So a lot of what we did, we’d go to a lot of museums and things like that. You can draw inspiration from so many different places outside of just music, so I’d say eclectic.

AllHipHop: Chicago is home to a slew of greats in the rap game. What was it like growing up there? 

Matt B: It was a tale of two cities, right? I was raised on the Southside of Chicago. I was raised in the straight up ghetto. l came from nothing, literally. Living in a three bedroom apartment with my siblings, I’m the youngest boy. There wasn’t enough room for all of us so all of our beds were inside of the dining room. That was our room, the dining room. A lot of hungry nights, a lot of cold nights in the winter. It was one of those things. 

Being where I am now, as an artist, I’m grateful for what I have. Because I know what the bottom feels like. Outside of that, Chicago truly is what they say it is to an extent. That’s not all that it is, but there’s some truth in it. From the dramas we deal with to the crime, sometimes you’re just trying to survive. I was lucky to live past 25. 

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AllHipHop: How did music save your life? 

Matt B: Music has always been there for me. It’s always been a big part of my family and my upbringing. It kept me grounded. It kept me out of trouble and out of the shenanigans. Whereas I had a lot of acquaintances that went down the wrong path, for me, music kept me focused. 

AllHipHop: What did you realize you could do music for a living? 

Matt B: That’s a good question. [laughs] For me, even if I wasn’t able to survive off of my music, I’d always do it. Because that’s how much it means to me. It goes beyond being able to live off of it. It really has been a confidant to me. It’s been a best friend to me. It’s been somewhere that I could turn when things got rough for me. But to fully answer your question, I got signed out in Japan. I had a #1 album out there for R&B on iTunes.

AllHipHop: How’d that happen in Japan?!

Matt B: It was random. I was uploading songs online and they randomly reached out to me. They said “hey, these 14 songs you have right here, we want it to be your album.” It ended up being distributed in over 1500 stores out there. They did physical and digital distribution for me. I then subsequently had another #1 album, two years later. From there, I kept pushing. I ended up with over 150 million streams in China because it bled over. That answers your question of when I found out I can live with my music [laughs].

AllHipHop: Definitely want to talk about your new album, ALKEBULAN. 

Matt B: ALKEBULAN means “mother of mankind” or “garden of Eden.” That started during the pandemic. I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and why. Angela being my wife and manager, she said, “You want to know what? You always said that you wanted to dabble in Afrobeats and African music. I think now’s the time to do it because the whole world has slowed down.” 

I was constantly telling her, I want to do it the right way. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the genre. I didn’t feel I knew enough about the genre at that time, so I spent almost a year just learning. Learning the music and what Afrobeats was. I took an ancestry DNA test to learn where I came from and what my heritage was. I really wanted to do it the right way. From there, I hit the ground running. I had a lot of people helping me out, a lot of co-writers to guide my writing to make sure that I was being as authentic as I possibly could. 

AllHipHop: Why did it take three years? 

Matt B: [Laughs] Honestly, we went through a lot of songs. Easily probably about 30 or so. This version of ALKEBULAN isn’t the original version. This is version three. We have two other albums that were supposed to come out. Honestly, even last year in December pushing into January, we scrapped version two and made version three. 

AllHipHop: Are you a perfectionist? Is that why? 

Matt B: [Laughs] I don’t like to think of myself as a perfectionist, but a lot of people call me that. Someone once told me that music is never finished, it’s just abandoned. That’s a really good perspective to have because if we all had the ability to continue to work on it, work on it and work on it, we probably would never truly release it. But at a certain point, you have to really let it go. Let it out to the world and just see what happens.

AllHipHop: How’s the reception been?

Matt B: It’s been overwhelmingly positive [laughs], and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. You put your art out into the world, you put your heart and soul into it. From there, you wait to see how people are going to react to it for better or for worse. It’s like giving a baby to the world, you let people react to it for better or for worse. For me, I’m really happy that people are receiving it well. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people. “This album has changed my life. It’s put things into perspective for me.” “Thank you so much for highlighting Africa and for showing we’re way more than grass huts. That we really do have culture out here and we have something to say musically, that Africa is beautiful.” “You have inspired me to seek after my ancestry and to figure out what’s going on there.”

This isn’t just people from African descent telling me this, these are across the board. All races of people are telling me this, so I’ve been really shocked. But music is supposed to do that, it’s a conversation. There’s always going to be a divide for better or for worse. Some people love it, some people will hate it. But ultimately, it’s a conversation worth being had.

AllHipHop: Talk about the journey it took to get to shoot the “GUNJALE” music video? Twenty eight- hour flight, 10-hour car ride.

Matt B: Let me take you on that journey. For starters, we filmed almost all the music videos out in Africa. We were out there for seven days. We filmed seven music videos in seven days in two different countries. When we landed in Uganda, right off of the flight, we were already running behind. We jumped into the van and we drove those 10 hours into Karamoja, which skirts the border of South Sudan. We had to get permission from the chiefs of the tribe in order to film there, literally hundreds of miles into the interior of Uganda where there wasn’t a soul in sight except for the tribe. During that time, it was one heck of an experience. There’s no running water, no electricity. It’s literally houses that they built out of straw, sticks, and mud. It was an amazing experience. 

Now. [laughs] Also during that time, apparently my wife caught the eye of one of the chiefs of the tribe. So much so, he tried to buy her for 600 cows, which is worth about a half a million US dollars. We didn’t even know because we didn’t speak the language. We found out after we left. He wasn’t even negotiating with me, he was negotiating with the other artists that spoke a shared language where some words overlap. That was for two days that he was trying to do that. As if that wasn’t bad enough, during our time there, I was trying to feed some of the members of the tribe. A lot of the children, because they didn’t have running water, they had no electricity, none of that, they didn’t have any food either. We left and we went way way up the road to one of the only shops that was there. Bought water, chips, juice, apples, all of that.

When we came back, we were going to give it to them. Well, that didn’t go over very well because everybody got p#####. They said, “You’re not going anywhere!” Because apparently when you feed a few people from a tribe, you’re supposed to feed the entire tribe. I didn’t know that. Now they’re bickering back and forth with us. They end up slashing one of the rear tires with a machete on the bus. We get back inside of the van. We drive off like what the heck is going on? We didn’t know whether or not they were going to be able to leave. They ended up calming the tribe down and being able to drive off. Then we had a run in with the Ugandan military. 

AllHipHop: That’s insane!

Matt B: Yes [laughs]. It was a culture shock. All of this happening because really, we were to an extent ignorant about how to go about moving through that country. It was crazy. We also didn’t know that we were filming drone shots on an off-the-grid Ugandan military base. One of the generals came up to us and said “what’re you guys doing?” Talking in their language, we stayed in the van. They were bickering back and forth for 40-something minutes. He wanted us to delete all the video footage. Eventually, he said “Hey. You can keep it, just delete the drone footage.” We ended up deleting the drone footage, but crazy stuff like that would happen to us. Insane.

AllHipHop: All for the music.

Matt B: For the love of the music, and to tell the right story. And to tell it in the light that it deserves to be told. Because ultimately despite all that adversity, Africa is a beautiful continent. Uganda is a beautiful country, and beautiful people are there. But it had more to do with us not understanding the culture, than it had to do with anything negative or any negative perceptions of what that country is about.

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AllHipHop: How’d it feel getting a Grammy nomination for “Gimme Love”?

Matt B: That really came out of nowhere honestly. That was one of the songs from version two of the album that still stayed on version three. “Gimme Love” was a freestyle. We were looking for artists to collab with from the continent. Eddy Kenzo is an amazing artist from the continent, we hit it off right away. We hit the studio a few days later. We were really vibing with one another, we ended up creating “Gimme Love.” 

From there, we ended up filming the music video. It came to a point where based off people’s reaction to the video, reaction to the song, we really thought we should submit this for Grammy consideration. We submitted it and our minds were blown that we were nominated. It meant a lot to me as an artist. It goes to show that all that hard work pays off and that it’s not fallen on deaf ears. You should continue to push your music as much as possible, because you never know who’s paying attention to you. You never know who’s listening or what may happen.

AllHipHop: Three things you need in the studio at all times? 

Matt B: I don’t eat enough [laughs]. Angela tells me that all the time. Maybe a really good vibe. Creative people, because sometimes artists like to be in the studio by themselves. I’m all about co-collaboration, so creative people would be one of them. I like the lights turned down. I’m boring, I need water. [laughs]

AllHipHop: What’re you most excited for next?

Matt B: I’m excited to continue pushing out ALKEBULAN. I know it has a lot of life left in it. It only dropped in August this year, so I’m excited to see how my fans continue to react to the music. I’m excited to tour both nationally and internationally, to create more music and to continue to be blessed enough to do what I love doing. To wake up everyday knowing this is a dream. I’m living in a dream world, so many people desire for this to happen in their life. For me to be one of the lucky people where it’s happening, how could you not be grateful for that? 

AllHipHop: Anything else you want to let the people know?

Matt B: I love my fans. I love all those who support me and those who have dedicated their time to listening to my music. I don’t take that for granted. I’m humbled by it all. I hope ultimately that I continue to create music that’s worthwhile and worth listening to, and we’re creating a conversation around it.