Niyi Adelekan
By the time he was 18, Niyi Adelekan was known in his home city of Lagos, Nigeria as a record producer with studio work and finished albums under his belt. Yet he had a God-given dream of honing his skills at the acclaimed Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Since graduating and moving to New York City, he has been doing production, writing and live work for the last few years. Having carved a niche for himself in the studio world as an audio consultant, his advice and expertise has been sought out by the likes of multi-platinum producer Poke of Trackmasters Entertainment (Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Will Smith, Faith etc), Seven of The INC Records (Ashanti, Ja Rule, Jennifer Lopez etc). So diverse has been his involvement behind the scenes that he has done everything from keyboard programming for the Manhattan Transfer, to winning the USA Songwriting Contest in the hip-hop category, to playing in instrumental jazz group ‘The Alliance’ with Darin “Pianoman” Whittington (Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Babyface, Herbie Hancock etc) to production for up and coming artists in gospel and other styles of music. His opinion has been sought out and published by the likes of Fortune Magazine and growing indie record labels like San Antonio-based Malachi Records. His early production work was well known in Nigeria in the gospel hip-hop and R&B scene, where he was the rapper and producer known as The Profile.
With new production work lined up, he is excited about his new relationship with Open Labs. His diverse musical background, (which began with formal classical piano lessons at the age of eight, to jazz and contemporary music exploration later on), makes the Open Labs NeKo the perfect keyboard workstation in his music production process.
Q: How did you first hear about Open Labs?
A: A few years ago, I saw an ad in Keyboard Magazine for a new workstation keyboard that had a computer inside of it. At the time, the Korg Triton and the Yamaha Motif ruled supreme, so I was skeptical, to say the least. Then one of my friends had one and invited me down to his studio to check it out. I was blown away by the fact that he had made the Neko the center of his whole studio. I knew then that Open Labs was on to something.
Q: How has the Neko changed your method of work?
A: It has streamlined my creative process in such a way that I have fewer hurdles to overcome between the concept in my head and the realization of my creative vision.
Q: How have you integrated the NeKo into your current studio setting?
A: I no longer have to use a ton of keyboards and racks. The NeKo houses all my soft synths and I run Pro Tools and Cubase 4 without a problem.
Q: Which kind of keyboard have you owned in the past and how do they compare to your NeKo?
A: Being a gear head for many years, I’ve owned everything from the Korg Triton to the Yamaha Motif to the Roland Fantom X to the Kurzweil PC2X. All these are wonderful keyboards in their own right. However, the Neko is what best suits my creative process because of the way I incorporate softsynths and integrate audio plug-ins into my workflow.
Q: Do you think the quality of your production now would be possible with another keyboard?
A: No one keyboard on the market has the feature set that the NeKo offers. While I was brought up in the school that says you have to know how to get a song out of whatever is in front of you, the Neko has everything I need at this stage of my musical development.
Q: What is next for you and your NeKo?
A: I plan to hit the studio hard for the rest of this year, with projects and collaborations lined up that, God willing, will come out sometime next year. I am still new to the NeKo, so I am getting used to a new way of working that truly makes the sky the limit for my production.
Equipment Used
NeKo SE (Gen3)
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