When Debbie Friday reflects on her youth, she feels compassion and respect for a woman who persevered despite difficult obstacles. The Nigerian-born musician's life in Toronto wasn't easy. An inspiring lesson, an obsession with things and a path to destruction seem too many visions for one man, but this dark offering now rests on Friday where he loved it.
"Sometimes I'm amazed at the things I've been through and I'm still here," he said in an interview with Yahoo Canada on Friday.
“I really respect my old self and my toughness. It can be very difficult to handle situations. But now toughness softens me and allows me more flexibility in my life and personality.”
Six years ago, you didn't necessarily see weak energy starting Friday. He first entered the Montreal nightlife scene in 2017 as a rookie DJ. Less than a year later — on a lucky Friday when his friends were spiraling into rampant drug addiction — his career finally changed course. After performing throughout North America, a subsequent tour of Europe and visiting music communities was the catalyst for his change of perspective.
Seeing young people living their lives, creating it and being artists really inspires me. Debbie Friday
But his return to Canada brought some surprises, which he described as a “nervous breakdown.”
“The entire structure of my life has basically collapsed,” he said Friday. “I gave up the nightlife, I left Montreal, I got sober - in that moment everything in my life changed. Then I thought, 'Okay, I want to make music'."
Night sessions teaching herself how to make music through YouTube tutorials eventually led to her six-song debut EP, Beachpunk, an “unbridled female rush.” It happened at his first gig when he moved west and enrolled in a master's degree in fine arts in Vancouver. With the release of his second EP, Death Drive, in 2019, he continued to shred with unrepentant whispers.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck the following year, Friday began writing his debut album in earnest. Then came last week’s Polaris Music Award winner “Good Luck.”
The climax of the story
Friday expresses his tendency to work in his thirties and imagines the current project as a trilogy, "good luck" to his original and true writing style.
"It's the least vague thing I've ever been through, it's the most tangible, personal, heartfelt thing I've ever been through," he said Friday.
“I have witnessed this development in three different projects. It’s an evolution about finding your own voice, discovering who you are as a person and engaging an audience.”
Without embarking on a journey towards civilization, life on Friday looks very different than it does today.
“Only through sobriety can I gain clarity about myself, my life, my desires, my needs,” he said. “It was an opportunity to gain clarity about myself as a person.
“It's like being yourself and coming out of the darkness, which I always say is like being in the womb. You're not done yet, you're not sure who you are, you can experience some things that can happen On the horizon of your future, you're not born yet.
The sexually suggestive thoughts of the song “Medusa” or the powerful electric vibe of the song “Deadly” are still present on the first album. But with “Good Luck” Fridays, artists like FKA Twigs and Sevdalija don’t hesitate to make further efforts. On her newly released single "Let's Go In," she goes one step further, embracing the sweet bedroom music style of singers like Pintenteres.
Stay outside the box
Experimentation and creative freedom are the main drivers of Friday art. This space, he says, welcomes electronic music that other genres might shy away from.
“It not only gives me space to express myself, but also to feel restricted,” she said.
“As a black woman making electronic music, I think the response in the world we live in today is much better than ever before. I'm glad to see that. I think, 'Okay, there's progress.' There's an openness to the idea that black women don't have to look like one thing.
Now that he has completed his most personal and vulnerable work, Friday is ready to take the freedom he envisions for his future work.
"I thought I would call my album 'Good Luck,' but I'm so happy and grateful to get this kind of recognition and it motivates me even more," he said.
“I have big ambitions for myself, I have big ambitions for my career and... I know where I want to go and what I want to do musically.”
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