Blaqbonez did not think he had made anything particularly special when he recorded ‘Chanel’. It took a night out in London and the reaction of a small group of people to make him realise the song could become something bigger.
The rapper has shared the stories behind his collaborations with Asake, explaining how the two songs came together in different circumstances before reaching the top of Nigerian music charts. In an account published on Memories FM, a platform that archives artists’ personal stories about their music, Blaqbonez revealed that he recorded ‘Chanel’ in Lagos in February 2026.
He said he makes music almost every day and did not initially consider the song extraordinary. That changed in April, when he travelled to London for a show. Rather than attend the usual after-party at a club, he took about 20 people from the show to Doña, an underground bar in Dalston. A cousin who worked there had offered to open the venue for the gathering.
Blaqbonez played some unreleased music through the bar’s sound system, and ‘Chanel’ quickly caught everyone’s attention. People kept asking him to play it again.
Encouraged by the reaction, he recorded a video of himself enjoying the song the following day and shared it online. The video gained significant attention, giving him a clearer idea of the record’s potential.
He eventually sent the song to Asake through Instagram. The pair had discussed working together before, but Blaqbonez had been waiting for the right record to send him. They later met in Nigeria to record the collaboration before travelling to London to shoot its music video.
The song went on to reach No. 1 on the Apple Music Nigeria Top Songs Chart and has accumulated more than 25.7 million streams on Spotify.