Hi, my name is WAYI – Although my roots are planted in Congo, I was born and raised in Antwerp, Belgium.
I grew up in a very religious family and was often exposed to Gospel music. Listening to other genres or watching video clips on MTV was entirely out of bounds. As my siblings and I grew older, we sought our own boundaries: My brothers joined rap groups and made music in their bedrooms while my sister and I secretly danced to TLC and Lil Kim.
At one point, my brothers were looking for female vocals for their new song. I proposed to do that and that’s how little WAYI got in touch with a microphone for the first time. (I always used the remote as a mic) After that I never stopped, I sang to all Alicia Keys’ songs, sang in my school choir, and did covers on Facebook and Youtube. Long story short of how I got into the music scene…
Going back to where I’m from for a second:
Belgium… The music scene in Belgium is quite small. It has its disadvantages but also its advantages. One of the advantages is that many artists know each other. You often end up in a studio where there’s another artist doing his/her thing, you’re invited to put some vocals on it and that’s how the many features come about.
This is roughly how the song “Chill” was created. In early 2019, Gandhi, a well-known rapper from Belgium, invited me to write and sing the chorus of his song for his new project. We finished the song that same night in producer Enikao’s studio.
Weeks passed, the song still on the hard drive… Gandhi decided to start a completely new project with a completely new sound. He left all the songs behind and started something new with the stage name G.A.N.
Fast forward to a year later. I worked with Enikao on a number of songs until we bumped into G.A.N’s song featuring myself again. It still sounded great! It was such a shame that the song was just lying there.
So we came up with the idea of asking G.A.N. for permission to rewrite the song and use it ourselves. He was very excited about it! So I rewrote the song and “Chill” was (re)born. For the harmonies, I got help from Daddy Waku, also a well-known artist from Belgium.
With “Chill”, I particularly wanted something more daring. WAYI usually makes gentle and sweet music, but this song just had to radiate sex. In each one of us, there’s another side we barely show people. Especially Geminis, known for our dual personalities, I wanted to take advantage of that personality trait and show that other side of me.
The inspiration behind the story of “Chill” comes from G.A.N. He sketched the vibe, which is: boy meets girl at the bar, they get to know each other and vibe for hours. When I rewrote the song, I continued with this approach. Somehow I took it a step further.
“Chill” is not just about a boy meets girl at the bar. My idea was to make it a little spicier: A man goes to a strip club for his birthday. He sees a stripper dancing and is overwhelmed by her beauty. Of course his friends notice this and for his birthday present, they offer him a private session with her.
The birthday boy and the stripper are in the VIP room, the attraction keeps growing between them to the point that the stripper doesn’t seem to care about the paid minutes anymore. She’s not in love, but she just loves that vibe between them.
Just when I thought my story might be too exaggerated, Enikao suggested we make a music video of it, MY VERY FIRST music video! I loved the fact that he didn’t think my idea was crazy. So we contacted a director and proposed the idea.
Unfortunately, the pandemic happened…. closed down strip clubs, no bars with lots of people allowed, so we had to adjust the story. Despite adapting the music video a few times, we still came up with great results thanks to the directing team of Luca van Ecke.
I loved everything about it, the hours of filming, the many video calls with the director, looking for the perfect MUA and stylist… I suggest you discover for yourselves how the music video turned out.
Enjoy! Love, WAYI
Watch the video for “Chill” below:
