CAPTAIN

Album ∙ Afrobeats ∙ 2025

BNXN

The two years that followed BNXN’s forthright 2023 release Sincerely, Benson only seem to have cemented the singer-songwriter’s OG status. That time is what sets the stage for CAPTAIN, a sophomore album that finds BNXN coming to terms with his place as an Afropop juggernaut. “‘Captain’ is the name one of my friends used to call me,” BNXN tells Apple Music. “He would often say that as a sign of respect, leadership, and to signify who was in charge. I keyed into it deeply in the sense that I started to see myself as a crucial player in the industry, especially the Nigerian music industry. I don’t have to be at the forefront of it all. I just believe the sound or the kind of music I make is up there. It’s important.”

That sense of self-assurance is palpable across CAPTAIN, where BNXN asserts his place as an Afropop lodestar without sacrificing the thematic rigor and tonal deftness that stood him out from the start. “There’s a significant amount of growth on this project,” he explains. “I feel like anybody who’s a core listener of BNXN knows that this guy is way more confident about what he’s doing. There is a tendency to get very unsure or unstable in this game, but this project just showed me how solidified I am.” With contributions from a talented cast of collaborators that includes Seyi Vibez, Victony, and Rema, CAPTAIN oscillates between sun-drenched summer jams (“Phenomena”), affirming anthems for girl bosses (“Cutesy”), and withering rebukes to trolls (“Ashimolowo”), while peeling back a few layers on the drive that has powered BNXN’s rise to the pinnacle of Afropop.

Read on as BNXN talks us through key tracks from CAPTAIN.

“I Alone”
“‘I Alone’ was produced by Rymez, a UK producer. For that beat, what stood out to me was [that] it just sounds very uptempo and very pop-like. It made me feel like I’m in high school enjoying some Black Eyed Peas type of music. [The song] is just me reflecting on my journey, and how lonesome it gets sometimes, but then I always have to remind myself that I’m him. It’s an introduction to me.”

“Cutesy”
“What’s crazy is, I like to see this project as a combination of four EPs. I never consciously recorded the EPs, but let’s just say they were sounds. So, the first four songs are all hip-hop-inspired. ‘Cutesy’ is sexy drill, but it’s still with the hip-hop influence, because it stems from New York. It’s the core feel of Afrofusion, just being able to fuse that African heritage with the hip-hop influence. I needed to try that sexy drill because the whole of summer 2024, when I was outside, that was all I was hearing. The women love that sound. Especially when the tequila is flowing.”

“Jies”
“It is an abbreviation for ‘ju idi e seyin,’ [which is] an interpolation from something Burna Boy did. There was a song he had back in the day with LeriQ and Phyno called ‘Turn Up.’ It’s a party scenario, but I had to make this feel like my own version of it. It’s produced by Young Soul, UK fucking genius-ass producer. It’s me just vibing and talking about being in the club, trying to woo a girl and telling her, ‘Your boyfriend could not level up to me, because I’m chilling. I’m chilling in the highest manner and I want you to join me. So, let’s dance.’”

“Very Soon” (with FOLA)
“This song just stemmed from FOLA really loving my music, and then thinking I could make his music better. I remember the day that I stumbled on the ‘Very Soon’ snippet on his Twitter. The song was done, right, but everybody only got to hear a 10- or 15-second snippet, and that was the best part of the record. He was like, ‘He’s going to send me the beat and I should just do whatever I want with it.’ FOLA did the hook, then I decided to do a little bridge there, do a verse, and then bring the hook back again. I am just happy when artists listen to each other because those kinds of things could have caused a rift. He could have felt some type of way, but he’s very understanding.”

“Eleyi”
“I think this is nostalgic music. This is galala. This is Ajegunle lost sounds. ‘Eleyi’ is street-dancehall. It was made in Ghana with Kel-P. ‘Eleyi’ is just me buttressing the fact that I’m doing something supercrucial in the industry. So ‘Eleyi’ is Yoruba for ‘this one’ and it is just me saying, ‘This very sound, this one, they can’t do it like me. This very sound is me, and if you go and hear it from another person, they couldn’t match it, like BNXN.’ It’s a lot of clones out there, but it’s like there’s the original person and that’s me.”

“Captain”
“I think this is my favorite song off the project—and it’s my life. I grossed like 1.2 billion streams, and it’s something that I was happy about, but it didn’t move me per se. I’m currently almost at 700 million streams on Apple Music. Maybe when I gross a billion on Apple Music, I’ll probably be cool. There are not a lot of people who have that in Nigeria. So, ‘Captain’ is me reflecting. I’m saying stuff like my life is the kind of one where I don’t have time for gratification. And the little gratification I do is to smoke weed when I feel like I’ve achieved some good thing. That’s how it just feels sometimes in the game. ‘Captain’ is me telling everybody that I didn’t choose this life, this life chose me.”

“Fi Kan We Kan” (feat. Rema)
“A lot of people were not expecting this one. Rema and I had been talking since 2023 and 2024, thereabouts. One of the songs I got or I sent him was ‘Fi Kan We Kan,’ and he loved it a lot. ‘Fi Kan We Kan’ is one of my favorite records. It’s the best song to demand your money from anybody.”

“Ashimolowo”
“So, this stems from a tweet. The tweet ‘Is Ashimolowo a bad bitch?’ That’s a stupid question, but it’s just me saying, ‘I don’t have time for a lot of things, or a lot of mentions. We’re still going to get money. We’re going to get extremely rich.’ So, there was something I used to do back then where, if somebody said something outrageous to me, I would crash out or I would respond to them. I don’t do that anymore, and that’s basically because of ‘Ashimolowo.’ It’s like I’m telling you, everything I do right now is magic, and it’s orchestrated by divine powers. I cannot be shaken by an agenda. We’re going to be successful, we’re going to make so much money, but we don’t have to respond to anybody.”

“Cough Syrup” (feat. Victony)
“So, this one is a Victony song originally. It was supposed to be on his project, but I was delaying on the verse, mainly because I hadn’t caught anything yet. Music is very sacred and special to me, especially if we’re not taking the gbedu [‘beat-driven’] route. The day I recorded the song, I was saying things that pertained deeply to me. On this song, I’m just saying, ‘People don’t want this smoke. If they did, they would choke a lot.’ I did the verse on it, and Victony hears it and he’s like, ‘This is deeper than what I wanted you to do before.’ I asked him to give it to me and he was OK with it.”

“In Jesus Name” (feat. Soweto Gospel Choir)
“I made this one in Cape Town with Gemini Major. ‘In Jesus Name’ is the conclusion to every prayer, when you say amen. It’s me describing my life with a little bit of detail, and how I feel so confident in what I’m doing. That’s pretty much the theme of the project, just confidence in what I’m doing, the solidity. It’s me feeling like I’m in the middle of the pitch and I have the captain’s armband on. I don’t have to score the goal. I don’t have to do too much, but I know at the end of the day, if we win that cup, I’ll be the one to lift it.”