Nigerian singer-songwriter and producer Bloody Civilian always speaks her mind. In 2022, her
breakout debut single, the R&B-tinged Afropop cut “How to Kill a Man,” took a tongue-in-cheek
but furious look at misogyny and social injustice. Its success was just one of the many
milestones she experienced last year: the dancehall-inflected “Wake Up” featuring fellow
Nigerian singer-rapper Rema appeared on the official soundtrack of the Marvel movie Black
Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Now she’s looking ahead, and moving forward with a desire to share as much of herself as she
can. The six tracks on her upcoming Def Jam EP, Anger Management, draw on her influences
from Afrobeats to jazz and pop to R&B—and of course her trademark honesty. “I feel like I’ve
gotten to a point where I have the strength to share whatever it is, I will put it into a song,” the
25-year-old says.

Bloody Civilian refuses to categorize her music. “I just think I make Afro-fusion, so I fuse
everything that’s African into my experimentation,” she says. While she takes her moniker from
the derogatory term used by Nigerian soldiers to refer to locals, she has flipped its meaning,
using it as a vehicle to showcase her experimental, unfiltered, and powerful storytelling abilities
and represent the diversity of African creative talents.

Anger Management’s standout track “I Don’t Like You” is a scathing rebuke aimed at an
unnamed person. “I don’t fucking like you on a normal day / And your people like to hype you /
But I no look their way,” she sings. “Your brain is co-dependent, that’s okay / But I am not your
friend.” Meanwhile, the searing “Where I Am From” addresses social issues and the effects of
bad decisions by Nigerian politicians on citizens.

The young Emoseh Khamofu grew up in Abuja, northern Nigeria, with a physician mother and a
father who was a touring musician before becoming a full-time engineer. Music was a constant
at home, including blues, instrumental jazz, and African pop alongside her discovery of hip-hop,
reggae, and R&B. She cites musical influences that include Fela Kuti, Frank Ocean, and Kid
Cudi alongside Nigerian singers Cynthia Morgan and Aṣa. She wrote her first songs at age
eight, with her supportive parents becoming her first audience, and later took to the stage in
church and at talent shows and school performances, performing her own original material.
At 12, she taught herself production with the help of an audio editing app and made her first
beats two years later. Eventually, Bloody Civilian was featured on Cold Freestyle alongside
SHOLZ off the NATIVEWORLD album by NATIVE Sound System, a DJ collective and
production group. The same year, her manager recommended her for the Black Panther:
Wakanda Forever soundtrack he was co-producing during a call for a female producer. The rest,
as they say, is history.

“Wake Up,” co-produced by Bloody Civilian with Wakanda Forever composer and conductor
Ludwig Goransson, displayed her omnivorous approach to songwriting, and her desire to
transcend musical boundaries, folding Caribbean influences into her boundary-pushing pop
music.

“I’ve been discovering things about myself and about the world and I just put it into a story,” she
says of her new music. “It’s an exciting process.” Though Bloody Civilian isn’t fixated on legacy,
her authenticity and ability to defy musical categorization, and the quest to highlight the diversity
of the African creative industry and talents leave her in a position to make an impact for years to
come.