My name is Crayon and Twelve A.M for me, stands for a new era, a new dawn and traditionally in the music business, fans wait up until 12am for new music every Friday, so it just made sense to me to call it that.
I’ve had darker times where I’ve been in the studio trying to record and I’ll have mental blocks and nothing is happening, what has kept me going is my fans. They kept supporting me, they kept showing me love and this EP is for them. It’s a new day, a new beginning, a new era, especially for my day ones.
From where I was in 2019, to where I am now, I hope this EP can help them to overcome their struggles too. Joy always comes in the morning and so I hope they do what I want them to do.
For this particular project, I had a lot of songs on there but I just picked four songs that I thought would be right for this project. And, everything about this tape is an in-house family thing!
“In Sync” was the last record that I recorded on the project! I had a meeting with my managers as I already had a lot of songs, but we wanted something that would just be me in my own element, me in my own world.
“In Sync” is about a guy asking a girl whether they’re on the same page, so it’s all about whether you’re doing the same as what you’re receiving – and fun fact… I wrote the second verse three times, I wanted something that would slap as hard as the first verse.
When I was writing the third verse, I got stuck, my mind was blocked so I went for a walk around the studio and I saw Ayra [Starr] sitting on the couch. She was just wearing her big hoodie – she likes a big hoodie – so I asked her if she could help me write the verse and she was like “Yeah, sure!”.
She did her part and it was just AMAZING! She’s an amazing talent and such a sweet person with a sweet soul. She’s a perfectionist, she did that take about twenty times! I love the fact that she’s so hard working.
“Too Correct” is a special record ‘cause Rema and I go way back, we’ve been close since 2018 and I was there when he came to the studio for the first time. I walked into the studio and he had his short dreads, his chains, Red iPhone 7, you know just fresh! And I was like who is this guy, he’s too fresh, too correcto!
We just gelled, got to know each other, played FIFA, that’s like my brother, we go way back. We’d talk about how we’re gonna take over the industry together! This record, Andre Vibez was in the studio making a sweet beat and Rema went first, he started reciting some lyrics…
Within the first five minutes we were done with the whole song! It was so smooth and so fast, I think that was one of my favourite sessions. What we said on the song is what we do on a regular day, we go to the club, the dark shades, it represents our lifestyles. Everything we said on the song is FACTS!
I made “Man Dem” and “In Sync” in the same week and it was about 2AM and Andre Vibez was working on another beat when he moved onto the production for this track. I walked into the studio, heard the beat and was like “this is hard!” The first thing that came to mind was “Work too hard, I must ball on my mandem“, I usually go with the first take and the first thought in my head, so I went with that.
I wanted to achieve a London sound and a Lagos sound at the same time, so my team reached out to One Acen’s team. Although I got a long list of rappers, I wanted someone young and fun, a rapper that’s in my space and era. One Acen’s also Nigerian too so we just clicked, he sent the verse three days after and it was crazy! It was exactly how I wanted the vibe to be.
“Jackpot” is a winning song, it’s a song that gets to speak about where I came from, because I came from Abela to Ojo, so from my house to Bella Shmurda’s house, it isn’t that far. And I remember us growing up in the hood, as little boys we wanted to hit the jackpot, as little boys we wanted to be successful and rich. So the song represents a young boy’s dream.
We started talking back in 2019, he sent me a DM saying we needed to link up but it didn’t happen for a while. We finally met though at Zlatan’s house for Christmas in 2019. Fast forward to 2021, he hit me up again when he was in the studio and I went the same day.
I heard the beat, it was really special from then on and the vibe was just crazy, the synergy was too sweet! That “ja.. ja.. Jackpot! Mote Je, jackpot”.
Everybody that has worked with me on this project, they’re all my friends, from the engineers, the producer Baby Fresh for this one, the girl who made my overall artwork, the photographers.. it was really special to me!
Listen to my Twelve A.M EP below!
