Akanbi Bamidele Brett, known as Cheque, is African artist, from Nigeria to be precise, whose new release “Razor” has taken over every nook and cranny of Nigeria. Born on 23rd of March 1995, Cheque has been in the music background from 2017, but became popular in September 2020 with his new single “Razor”
He graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria and moved to Lagos for greener pastures.
The 25year old graduate of chemical engineering, stole people’s heart with “zoom zoom zoom”.
Razor, his new single was released this year, 2020.
Cheque
Cheque is a fast rising penthouse super star. In February 2019, Cheque signed to Phyno’s Penthauze Music. But before then, he was signed to another label; Cruel Station, which also had the likes of DML (now Fireboy DML). He released an EP “S.o.o.n” (Something Out Of Nothing) under the imprint with features from the likes of DML, Virus Zamaro and Chinko Ekun.
The contract earned him and DML a house before it expired in the final months of 2017. Before he got signed to Penthauze, he was formerly known as Kyle-B.
This is what he had to say, when asked how he got the stage name “Cheque”
“Before I started music, I would go to an area where they freestyle and watch the guys go hard for hours, admiring every single rapper or singer that came up to do something nice. So, one day, I was anxious to see what it felt like to hold a mic and when I did, all that could come out of my mouth was cheque. I said this 15 times, people started laughing, and that’s how the name got stuck to me. Anytime I went back, they would say ‘that’s the Cheque guy coming”
Cheque is a talented artist with an expansive sonic palette.
He described himself as a new school artiste representing unbound diversification and versatility.
He fuse all genres of music into Afro, rap, R&B, hiphop, pop, lyricism and melody.
During one of his numerous interviews, he was asked at what point did he start taking music seriously? And the words below were his answer
“I started taking music seriously in 2015. At this time, I was in the University studying Chemical Engineering”
His Journey Into Penthauze
In 2017, He moved down to Lagos to focus on his music career after his tertiary education.
Through 2017-2018, he was dishing out freestyles online where he had gained lots of attention from music fans.
One of those days, he had dropped one freestyle for Ajigijaga Reminisce’s contest and a couple of days later, he got a direct message that surprised him. It was from Phyno. The rest, like they say, became history.
He was unveiled by Phyno to Penthauze records in February 2019.
Cheque came through with his debut single under the imprint titled “Nyem Space” in March 2019 which saw him collaborate with Phyno alongside the other label signees, Rhatti and Nuno.
He also made an appearance on Olamide’s single “Warlords” off his “999” album in March 2020.
A few weeks ago, he released Razor EP – his first under Penthauze.
Razor is afro hiphop and rap, with a mixture of different genres.
To Razor, “The level of consistency when it comes to Olamide and Phyno are unmatched and admirable.” That consistency is what he envisions for himself and hope to achieve.
Watch out for CHEQUE as we hope that the single RAZOR, will bring a thorough breakthrough into the music world.