zamir breaks down the
true meaning of 'munchies'
This is a guest editorial written by Zamir annotating his single, Munchies.
February 27, 2020
The creative process
I started the process in late 2017, early 2018 around the time we dropped Alté Cruise. It was just one of those days at GMK’s house, he was making a bunch of beats around that time. The ‘Munchies’ beat was just one of those ones I felt I had to record on. Although it was just a loop, I already had the hook in my head. Then I tried to create a story with the song, I tried as much as possible to connect with every line because I wanted it to seem like a real conversation between a guy and a girl. I wanted create an illusion of house parties back in high school and I also wanted to chip in the idea of consent - of always having to ask the woman before you even touch a woman.
I was going to do a second verse and then I realized I had to put someone on it.
The only person that came to my mind at the time was Amaarae, because I heard the song she did with AYLØ (Whoa!). I needed someone to bring back that energy but at the same time I didn’t want it to be too feminine. I believe everyone has their masculine and feminine side, so I needed someone that was sexy not so much in a feminine way and Amaarae was perfect for this. She just came through and she did her thing. After we recorded, we worked on the drums. Shoutout to GMK with the production, mastering and engineering.
What Munchies means to me
Munchies is like my baby to be honest. I was going through a lot at that point, so me making Munchies was like I was creating happiness for myself and creating a party in my life when there was none. I kept the song for a while, because I needed to put it out at the right time. Looking back now and how long I kept it going through everything I went through, I feel like it brought my old and new fans together.
How the video was made
It made a lot of sense to me to drop the song when the video was ready because I’m a visual artist and so is Amaarae and I think it’s important for artists to work on visuals not only on records. Videos are things i really like to do, i take it seriously. I wanted the video to be playful, colourful, naughty but not so dirty.
I shot my part in Lagos and Amaarae couldn’t make it to Lagos at the time so she shot her part in Ghana and we had to use green screen to put it together which was kinda hard at first, but we found a way to make it work.
Shoutout to Prassars Collective from Port Harcourt, TSE who worked on the images, Bz Darko from Ghana who worked on the set design and Wintarstudios.
Conclusion
I wanted to bring back that ‘Bad Guy P’, ‘Normal Dubz’ bounce, obviously with a lot more finesse. Also I wanted to create awareness for consent because it’s important for artists to make the world a better place. Last thing, this is like the wild free youth of Nigeria, and I feel like Munchies is meant to be that balance for guys and girls . Just a song you can chill to, something you can eat to. I swear fans have sent me some videos of them eating to the song, it’s the funniest thing.
