Loook Issue 01 | September, 2026
Words & Interview: Fortune Ibeh
Over a Google Meet call slated for an hour, the leader of the Outlaws joins us at exactly 1:30 p.m. sharp, sounding remarkably relaxed. There is no sense of ceremony to it. No stiff introductions or carefully rehearsed answers. Within minutes, what was meant to be an interview begins to feel more like a conversation between people catching up.
And, gracefully, we let it.
By the time we really get into it, Victony has already settled into the room.
Starlife has been out for a few days now, which means the wait is finally over. The songs are no longer just his. They’re being played in cars, at parties, through headphones, onstage and, inevitably, debated across charts and timelines. After months of anticipation, the album has left the safety of his hands and entered the world.
So, naturally, we start there.
How is he feeling? He laughs, thinks for a moment, and the conversation begins to open up. Soon, we’re talking about the album, but also everything that came before it: Outlaw, Stubborn, Very Stubborn, the accident that became an indelible part of his story, the people who helped shape this new chapter, and the freedom he seems to be finding in it.
For our first Loook Issue, powered by LSTVWW, London, Victony sat with us to talk through that evolution, what it took to get here, and what it feels like to finally enjoy the life he spent years fighting for.
He has spent his whole career chasing one thing, and he’ll tell you himself if you ask him plainly enough. Not excellence, not a lane, not even a sound. Freedom. From Outlaw’s early defiance through the open wounds of Stubborn and Very Stubborn, each era has been another version of that pursuit, a young artist finding new and increasingly honest ways to express himself.
Starlife feels different. The fighting has quietened a little. The trauma isn’t gone, but it no longer has to take centre stage. Instead, Victony is choosing to look around, take in the view and enjoy the life he spent years fighting to reach.
Maybe that’s the easiest place to begin: not with where he is now, but with everything it took to get here. Because Starlife doesn’t exist in isolation. It carries traces of every version of Victony that came before it, even as he seems increasingly comfortable leaving some of them behind.
Starlife is out now, but I want to rewind a little. When you look at the journey from Outlaw to Stubborn, Very Stubborn and now STARLIFE, what has that transition actually felt like for you
It’s me just growing right as a person, learning and learning, and I feel like there’s been so much real life reflection in the music, right from Stubborn to Very Stubborn, and to star life, it kind of just shows you where my head space is at, but overall it’s just been me, it just felt like growth, to be honest, through this different process, so yeah.
Starlife feels very different in spirit. There’s a looseness to it, almost like you’re allowing yourself to enjoy the view a little more. Was that something you consciously felt while making it, or did you only recognise it when the album was finished?
Yeah, I think it came from the song, Starlife.
You know, when we made the song Starlife, it somehow just happened to be, like, the core of everything that I was making, you know, very unintentional. But long story short, we wanted to do an EP first, and we decided to call the EP Starlife, I don’t know why to be honest. I guess it just connected and resonated with us at the time, the way the song was and with a couple songs at the time, you could feel all the elements of other songs in Starlife, so it just became the core of everything we were trying to build and then we transitioned into a mixtape it was still going to be called Starlife and finally transitioned into an album, it didn’t change the name.
Seems like you made Starlife before Slick and Fresh was that the case?
Yes, Slick was the last song we made and that’s what made me decide, you know what, let me turn this into an album. Because to be honest, till June, July, it was supposed to be a mixtape.
I feel like you could still get that mixtape energy from the rollout and how quick we went to put out the album.
I decided to turn it into an album because I wanted people to take the music very serious, because time and effort had gone into production, writing and making sure, like, everything sounds good. And I felt like, yeah, this is above mixtape, feels like an album, but everything else around the energy surrounding the release of this project has been very, very mixtape, I won’t lie.
How long did it take you to get the full album, the 15th track?
I’d say about 7 months, yeah.
That took a while. Interesting.
If you zoom out and look at the journey, there’s a pretty striking progression: Outlaw, Stubborn, Very Stubborn, and now STARLIFE. Each title feels like it captures a different version of you. When you look back at those eras, what do you see?
I mean the goal has always been the same, I felt like all I have always wanted for myself in this life is to be really free, and so every version of myself that I look at is just me making an attempt to be free, it’s just been in that chase for freedom.
So, when you look at Stubborn, it’s like the same thing, and the process for putting out Stubborn is very, very similar to STARLIFE, actually. It started up the same way. It was meant to be an EP and then it turned into an album.
It’s just like, I don’t care, these are the best songs that I have, I’m going to put them together and put out an album regardless of what is expected.
[He pauses for a moment.]
So, to be honest, I just see different versions of myself that just really wanted to be free.
But, obviously, in these three eras of my career, I’ve been in different situations. I’ve fought different battles, I’ve survived different things and I’ve been in different headspace, but it’s still the same kid, just growing, it couldn’t have been any different, based on the people in my life and then the car accident that I dealt with, I mean it’s just me, it’s just freedom, you know.
Yeah I mean, anyone that pays attention will see the artistic journey and I think yours is very evident.
You mentioned Slick, was the last song you made on the album. While making, did you think it was going to be this massive?
No, no, no. I didn’t, to be honest. I mean, I knew it was a good song, right from making it, I remember I was so excited.
I had doubts, just little doubts.
I mean, Slick, Slick, the way the chorus was repetitive, I didn’t know if Nigerians were going to fuck with it. It was just very new. Even when I sent it to my Manager at the time, he was already fed up, because I would do this every week where I’d send new songs.
And it’s like, oh, we have to figure out the thing again. And that’s why we kept moving, like, from EP to mixtape to album.
So when I sent him Slick, It just felt like too much at the time, for him to process. And I was like, you know, let me just actually chill on this record a little bit. So I think I was planning the shoot for “who this”, and then I played some songs for my videographer and he’s like, “yeah, this is the one, these songs are crazy, it just really puts you, like, in your own lane.”
And once I heard that, it sparked something in me again. Because that’s really what I wanted to do with this project. To show people what, Victony is capable of and do things, only Victony can do. So once I heard that, I started, like, getting into that zone again.
I just started playing the record again. I fell in love with it again and I became excited. I say this to say that I didn’t really have the chance to think about what it was going to do.
It was just that battle of, oh, am I going to put this out? Am I not going to put this out? Just based on everything that was going on at the time. Until I got to a place where I was excited enough to think about the visual, shoot and just put it out, that’s where it stops, but enough in terms of what is it going to do or not, to be honest I didn’t know, I just liked it.
You just said “ you want people to know what Victony is capable of” and I came across a video of you recently rapping, you used to be a rapper, also found out that you drew the cover art for outlaw, that just shows that there’s a lot to the name Victony, are we going to see a Victony rap song?
I think I know the video you’re talking about.I was cringing at that video.
[Laughs]
No, I doubt, I doubt I’m ever going to be rapping again. I think I found what I’m good at and I’ll just stick to it. But, I mean, you can always just hear, like, the hip-hop influence in my music, one way or the other.
Like on Starlife, even with the intro song, you hear some, some rap influences, same thing with Slick, right on the hook, and same thing with, Typo and 2Fresh.
So, I think with Starlife, I try to just show that side of me, which I’m always going to do, in my music, even though I’m a singer, but you’ll be able to tell with, like, certain cadences or, just rhythm or my flow choice or what not, that it is slightly different from, a regular Afrobeat artists.
So, but in terms of, like, rapping, rapping for real, I don’t know. I’m not sure.
[We both laugh]
STUBBORN, had international footprints with features with Teezo Touchdown & SAINt JHN. On STARLIFE you came back home why was it important for you to feature more Nigerian artists on this?
To be honest, I think it was from me trying to just do this quickly. Because Starlife is a very short phase. It’s not something that I wanted to overemphasize. And that meant doing music with the people that I have genuine relationships with. I got the verses from everybody, really quick. I also knew, these guys would really kill this. I could hear them in that soundscape.
I also wanted it to be genuine, because I wasn’t going to text anybody or wait for my label to reach out to anybody. Personally, I didn’t care about that in this process. I just believed in the music so much. And I wanted people that I could talk to and people that I can get real time feedback from.
And that’s what, really, really empowered that decision to just bring it home. It’s just wanting to be really authentic.
Like I said, Starlife is me, really, really, stepping into myself and doing the things that really makes me happy as a person, and the things that I have easy access to that make me happy.
And that’s the thing about my relationship with Baby Boy AV. That’s somebody I spend time with every day, same thing with YKB, YKB will come to my house and stay for a week or something. I go to Blaqbonez’ house every other day, and then, if I want something from Bnxn, he’s one text away.
I had, multiple sessions with Young Jonn at the start of the year. So, these were verses that I could just stretch out my hands to get, and I knew, they would also put in effort because of their level of respect from me.
But it wasn’t an intentional thing for it to be, like, oh, just only Nigerian features. It just worked out that way because of where I was and how I was just thinking about the process.
This sounds like Starlife is more like a family thing.
Exactly
Hmmm…What does the era Starlife really mean to Victony currently?
“Starlife” is me talking about the life I’m living right now, but at the same time, it’s also me manifesting the life that I desire. It’s still me fighting for myself, in a sense. Like, in this life, I’m going to be happy. I’m going to get all the good things in life. In contrast to my previous project, Stubborn. It was really personal, and that was also a step in that direction of wanting the best for myself, wanting to step in a very, very positive direction, wanting to step into the light.
And with Very Stubborn, it was trauma dumping on those records, like, being very open and vulnerable to the fans. And just releasing everything that I’ve held in for so long.
Starlife is a very different project from that, but it’s still a step in that direction. It’s, like, I’m not going to focus on the negative side of my life now, even if I still battle with those things, every now and then. Starlife is still a fight for my life, to be honest, but in a very, very different direction, it’s me saying, I’m going to step into my happy place.
This year, I have recorded over a hundred songs, to be honest, all just talking about the same thing, and if I put out a hundred of them, it wouldn’t sound any different from what is on Starlife.
And that’s how much energy I put into it, just making sure, like, I’m focused on the positive things, I’m not talking about anything negative.
This era is less about excellence or trying to prove, being the best artist or what, or trying to have the album of the year.
But it’s really about what I want for myself and that’s why I made these records, just to have fun with my friends, with my fans. You know, I made these records for my shows also.
Interesting….Your relationship with Ozedikus seems to have become a big part of the Starlife story. You both have worked on a series of songs about 13 or more? You made “FRE$H,” then “SLICK,”. What do you remember about making these two records? And at the time, did you have any idea you were sitting on something that would become this big?
Actually, I didn’t. This year, making music, One thing I wanted was to allow the music lead, and that’s why I hit up so many producers at the start of the year. I didn’t have a particular direction, I was just making music out of curiosity, I let myself just be in those sessions. I really wanted to tap into different people’s worlds. And with Ozedikus that was the case, I hit him up and I’m like, “bro, let’s have a session”, and to be honest, I didn’t even know what to expect.
Like, my friend at the time, he was just helping me, reminding me of producers in the game. He’s like, oh, you should work with this person, you should work with this person. So at the time, he was like, okay, let’s work with Ozedikus now.
Then I hit him up and, you know, Fresh was the first beat I heard when I went to the studio that day. And yeah, we made the song, we made three songs that night.
I just tried to do a session with him every week. Because, one thing I also wanted to do was to be musically sound.I have as many songs with Ozedikus as I have with PPrime, & Rage.
I know I have at least ten songs with almost every producer that I’ve worked with this year. So music to me was, similar to ,attending the gym, but, I mean, as much as it was I had to keep recording.
I also have something special with Ozedikus, with the way he records me, the way he works my vocal stack. He could immediately see the idea or see the end, from the beginning during sessions, and I think that’s what stood out, with Ozedikus. That’s what happened with Fresh, and that’s what gave me the confidence to keep working on more unique ideas with him. Because he knows how to get it done, and just start tailoring it to what you have in mind.
So with Slick, it was unique, because he sent me a different beat and went to the studio, we tore it down, I did the reference, and had the girls come in and another day, we did the second verse.
I mean, Slick is one song that, you know, we took time to produce, and that’s so funny because the song is very short compared to the time we used to produce it.
Quickly, I want to take a step back and appreciate the team behind STARLIFE, from the management team to the creative team (the stylist to the photographers etc), & producers and everyone that worked hard to portray this version of you.
Ten years from now, when people talk about Victony, what do you hope they remember beyond the songs?
I want them to remember me for my authenticity, I want them to be inspired by how much of myself I was. I want them to look at me and not care about what people think about them.
[A brief pause. We sit with that for a moment before circling back to Starlife.]
Back to Starlife, you made mention that Starlife is a short phase. What should we expect from Victony after Starlife?
I mean, it’s just going to be growth still. I feel like I’m learning faster and I’m growing faster and that’s why I’m quick to realize what I want for myself. I think you should expect a more matured version of me, a grown version. And that’s what you’re always going to keep getting.
QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS
Lagos or London?
Lagos.
Starlife Album Art or Stubborn Album Art?
Starlife Album Art.
I hope you ain’t picking STARLIFE because it’s out
No, no, no, no.
I feel like the album art is the deepest part of the whole thing. In it you see me as a kid with accessories like that, the big chain and the big hats, something that’s meant for, an adult. It just passes a message, what I carry inside me is bigger than I am. So, to me, like, every time I look at that cover, it reminds me of something deep.
Rapping or Singing?
Singing.
Morning or Night?
It depends, though. Okay, let’s just go with morning, because of how I’m feeling today.
Naija Babes or Yankee Babes?
Naija Babes oo
Gamer or Movie Fan?
Movie.
Movies or Football?
I don’t watch football.
You don’t watch football?
[Smiles]
No, I don’t.
Oh, gosh! Outlaws need to know this one.
[we both laugh]
What’s your favorite country to stay asides Nigeria.
U.S
Is the album going on the road? Are you going on tour?
Definitely, definitely, definitely. Next year.
Would Africa be experiencing it? Because there’s a rise in more artists coming home to do more shows in Africa with their album.
Yeah, of course. Benin, Lagos, Abuja, Ghana, Possibly Uganda, Kenya.
Credits:
Editor-in-Chief: Lanre Shonubi
Photography: Danielle Mbonu
Producer: Ruby Aryiku
Fashion Stylist: Joel EG
Co Producer: Vamp Media Agency UK
Design: Fortune Ibeh
Writer: Fortune Ibeh | Tobi Oke