When I converse on a Zoom call with thirty-one-year-old Marvey Muzique, his tone lacks pretension. His reactions feel organic, like chitchat. “My knowledge of music theory is heavy, so I have never been caught off guard,” he says. “In a situation where an artist wants something that is not Afrobeats, it’s easy for me to go to the heart of wherever the genre of that art is.” Here is a man who is his own biggest critic yet he entertains well-tailored criticisms about his craft.
Born in Imo state, Marvellous Cosmas, popularly called Marvey Muzique, grew up in Port Harcourt in a family that loved music. One of his uncles was a disc jockey, another was an artist. His mother often listened to music at home, and Marvey Muzique became accustomed to some names—West Life, Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra. “I remember the first time I ever played the piano was because someone took a loan from my mum and gave his piano as collateral and he never came back to pay the loan,” he said. Eager to acquire more knowledge, he used his mother’s credit card to buy online piano courses. At age 16, he was already playing the piano on stage and performing for some big churches and rose to the position of music director. In between he learnt to play drums.
Soon, Marvey Muzique craved artistic efflorescence and switched to doing secular music. He experimented with singing and rapping before setting for music production and mix engineering. With the aid of platforms like YouTube and Discord, Marvey Muzique commercialized his craft, amassing an online audience and making enough money to fend for himself. His YouTube trickled with subscribers, which conferred legitimacy on his craft. But his big break came with working on Qing Madi’s See Finish. “It is not because the song brought me money,” he says. “It’s because I finished that song as a mix engineer and did not know how much people loved the song until I got to Lagos and saw people’s reactions to it.”
Marvey Muzique found a home in Afrobeats as he moved on from one project to another, catering to the musical interests of popular artists in Nigeria and abroad such as Davido, Ayra Starr, Blaqbonez, Son Tung MTP (Vietnamese), Mayorkun, Blaqbonez, Maphorisa, Akon, Qing Madi, Chris Brown, Mr Eazi, Phyno, Ajebo Hustlers, Ajebutter, Dandizzy. “The core of my music is Afrobeats,” he says. And then he adds, almost immediately, to ascertain his eclecticism: “But I love to fuse Afrobeats with other genres of music.” He hopes to work with the likes of Victoria Monday, Tems, and Lojay whose vocals, he thinks, “serenade songs”, Rema, and Omah Lay for their intriguingly “laid-back” musical pattern. He also wishes to work with fellow producer and flourishing colleague Blaze Beats. His songwriting skill comes as an icing on the cake for the multi-hyphenate. With this, he can easily carve out a single for an artist with nothing to correct in the beats.
Being able to mix sounds on his own, Marvey Muzique believes, gives him an edge over his contemporaries in music production. “This helps me in a situation where any other engineer needs to mix a song I produce and I try to assist them in a way that they get my vision clearly without having to stress them out,” he says. When mixing, he relies on his guts without necessarily considering the personality of the artist he is working with. When asked about how he works with difficult artists, he responds: “I try as much as possible to be in tune with the artist’s vision instead of imposing mine on them.” His other abilities are layering and separating sounds, determining appropriate tones for songs, and sound design.
Marvey Muzique has been Davido’s private recording engineer since he first met him around February 2023. At that time, he was living in Abuja and had traveled to Lagos for a session with Davido’s signee Morravey. Impressed by the producer’s work ethic and attention to detail, Davido prevailed on him to relocate to Lagos. Since then, the producer has been exposed to more creative opportunities in the industry. He mixed and mastered Picasso featuring Logos Olori, engineered In The Garden featuring Morravey—both songs from Davido’s Timeless album, and worked on Sensational featuring Chris Brown and Ogechi remix featuring Davido. He also co-produced Davido’s latest song, Awuke, featuring YG Marley. “The song was heavily Amapiano,” says Marvey Muzique describing the creative process behind it, “but I decided to bring the song back home a bit and added some talking drums just to give it more energy.”
For over a year, Marvey Muzique has maintained a solid relationship with Ayra Starr, contributing massively to her latest album The Year I Turned 21. “I engineered about eight songs on the album and vocal-produced a lot of them,” he recalls. This includes tracks like Woman Commando and The Kids Are Alright, as well as collaborating with fellow producer London on the track Birds Song Of Money. “Right in front of Ayra, I started working on the song,” he fondly recalls.
As a music producer, Marvey Muzique has learned to work under stringent conditions. “Most mixing and mastering projects I get come like a week to the deadline or less,” he says. “I’ve adapted to the situation and set up something in my house so that when you tell me about your ideas, I start working on them as early as 5 am the next day.” In addition to developing a high tolerance level, he devises creative ways to avoid running out of ideas. “Whenever I have the creative energy,” he says, “I try to make as many beats as possible to compensate for time when I have beat blocks.” Outside work hours, he plays video games, reads nonfiction, and visits the cinema.
Marvey Muzique admires the resilience and evolution of Young Jonn and hopes to follow suit in the future, evolving as a sought-after performance artist. He also looks forward to directing music videos. His aspiration includes being “one of those guys putting Afrobeats on the map.” As the Nigerian music industry, with its abundant talent, continues to take shape and catch the interest of global industry players, including getting more recognition at international awards like the Grammys, Marvey is more convinced of his place as a game changer.
