Nigeria’s Johnny Drille eyes Ugandan magic with Joshua Baraka – Sqoop

For Johnny Drille, a multi-talented Nigerian artist, writer, and producer, admiration isn’t something he throws around lightly. So when he talks about Joshua Baraka, you can hear the conviction, clear, deliberate, and loaded with expectation.

Their last encounter in Uganda wasn’t the fairytale studio link-up fans would imagine. It was rushed, crowded with commitments, the kind of meeting where time slips through your fingers before anything meaningful can be created. But even in that brief window, something clicked. Not a finished song but a spark.

The ‘How Are You My Friend’ singer describes Baraka as “brilliant” and “fantastic,” but it’s what lies beneath those words that matters. He’s drawn to artists who feel the music, who don’t just perform but live inside their sound. In Baraka, he sees that rare quality, the kind that doesn’t need validation, the kind that travels.

Because this isn’t just about a possible collaboration but more about catching up with intention. Drille speaks of it like an inevitability, not a maybe. For him, working with talents like Baraka is instinctive, almost necessary. “It’s a no-brainer,” he said during an interview on The Beat on NTV, hinting at the kind of synergy that doesn’t require overthinking.

And when it finally happens, when the studio doors close and the noise fades, Drille is convinced it won’t just be another collaboration but something “mind-blowing,” the kind of record that reminds you what happens when two deeply musical minds collide.