As a single act, Synergy shows BoyPee, Brown Joel, and Hyce are a cohesive, electrifying trio; our industry’s most exciting addition in a long time.
By Patrick Ezema
They are often addressed with the informal moniker of the ‘Ogechi Boys’ but BoyPee, Hyce, and Brown Joel attempt to prove with Synergy that their talent and coordination runs deeper than that 3 minute track showed. They emerged on the wings of the 2024 single, their very first collaboration after they had managed separate careers for the previous few years to varying levels of success.
Following its success, especially after its Davido-assisted remix, the trio smartly narrowed their artistic focus to everything that had made it successful. They coalesced into a boy band of sorts, effectively neglecting their individual careers to follow up “Ogechi” with “Constantly” and “Must”.
Synergy is a display of the seemingly endless pool from which “Ogechi” arose, brimming with music sporting a heavy Igbo highlife influence and local percussion, with topics centred heavily on lust for the female form.
Do not expect much depth because they do not attempt to cover more ground than this. It makes for more homogeneity, but the shallowness of their discourse pulls Synergy back from being anything more than a fun fifteen-minute ride.
Their opener lays bare their mindset as effectively as it can, with the chorus ringing out a brief, sultry mantra: “Girl I’m in love with your ukwu size/ She got the figure wey dey make me hypnotise/ Ikebe wey you carry heavy, don love am already”.
Even in their lasciviousness they cannot hold a consistent muse: the first verse had already described this woman as a slim figure. In turn, this freedom with writing allows them to create without any real boundaries of any kind; their subject can be slim or thick, their intentions true or lustful, so long as they hold a vague allusion to love and desire.
Still, the EP’s main drawback is its length. Being only six songs long—with three already released—it is hard to proclaim this as new music. The songs that do get added, “Hypnotize”, “Que Sera”, and “Another Day” fit into the EP seamlessly and maintain their standard of sonic quality.
Another interesting decision, perhaps a more divisive one, is the inclusion of “Ogechi” in its original version and not the Davido-assisted remix that doubled its streams and popularity.
There may very well be executive and/or legal reasons behind its absence, but it points to the intention of BoyPee, Hyce and Brown Joel to own this moment they are in now, and take control of their story and their sound, especially in the nascency of their career.
Besides, anyone who misses Davido’s verse will quickly find some consolation elsewhere. Synergy is woven in mesmerising sonics from start to end, the kind that should be expected when three different songwriters layer hook after delightful hook in a single song.
In many ways, their strength is in their number; in the slightly different ways they approach a beat that makes for an ever-changing experience from start to finish and how, when they want to, they can stack up their vocals for a punchier fourth voice.
The combination of these two makes for a tried and true formula for approaching choruses, best seen in how they split the call-and-response choruses for “Ogechi”, “Constantly”, or “Must.”
Their voices settle into a range where it’s impossible to tell who’s singing each time—they all possess slightly different variations of the high-pitched, soft voices commonly possessed by younger male singers of TikTok fame.
These minor variations—like Brown Joel possessing the silkiest high notes and BoyPee the softest—only serve to multiply the effect of each saccharine singer. The results are almost choir like, if there was ever such a choir that would sing such worldly music.
Surprising, their lack of thematic depth does not equate to boredom or repetitiveness. On the contrary, their ability to craft new and interesting allusions for sex each time offers some freshness: “chop my groundnut, born my baby” is a favourite of theirs, featuring on two different tracks.
A never-ending repertoire of other food items are used as innuendos: cherry, spaghetti, kilishi, chocolate, milk. Where it gets less humourous is when they borrow lines from Nigerian Pop’s tired lingo.
For a change of pace, “Must” stands in contrast to all other songs. It shifts focus to matters of growth and finance, as Brown Joel recalls surviving hard times—“Crazy things I been dey do/ When I been dey obeledu”—while painting an unsavoury picture with shoelaces used in place of a belt and nails used to hold slippers together.
It is a shame, then, that they cannot continue down this novel path for too long, before the subject of lust rears itself again: “The way she move with that her goody bag/ Make me want to lick my ten fingers”. It is a wasted opportunity that would have proven the existence of another layer to their artistry, even if they do not tap into it often.
Synergy delivers everything it promised—dynamic, saccharine music; a novel twist in their interest in Eastern instrumentation, most importantly, the additive effect of these three singer-songwriters.
They insist on not taking on a band name—perhaps holding on to their individual careers that they hope to launch into. As three separate entities, BoyPee, Brown Joel and Hyce are talented young artistes, but not distinctive enough for each one to stand out.
As a single act, Synergy shows BoyPee, Brown Joel and Hyce are a cohesive, electrifying trio; our industry’s most exciting addition in a long time.
Lyricism – 1.1
Tracklisting – 1.5
Sound Engineering – 1.5
Vocalisation – 1.7
Listening Experience – 1.6
Rating 7.4/10
Patrick Ezema is a music and culture journalist. Send him links to your favourite Nigerian songs @EzemaPatrick.