Iyke Elvis: Meet the Music Producer Behind Fido’s “Awolowo” and Alex Iwobi’s “Joanna”

When “Awolowo” started travelling beyond the studio, Iyke Elvis was still an intern at a record label. His boss arrived at work one morning with the song playing loud enough to hear from the gate and kept it on all day, unaware that the intern down the corridor had made it. At closing time, a neighbour drove into the estate with the same record coming from her car. On the way home, his Uber driver played it on repeat. “It was at that moment I realised that Awolowo was becoming bigger than just another record,” he recalls. Hearing his work follow him through an ordinary day brought a sense of responsibility. He needed, he says, to “keep evolving, and ensure that the song’s success would never outgrow me.” Released in August 2024 as Fido’s debut single, “Awolowo” had passed 113 million streams on Spotify by October 2026.

His boss only discovered who produced the record when Fido mentioned Iyke’s role in an interview. By then, Iyke was a month away from the end of his internship, when the label would decide which interns to retain as permanent staff. He decided to pursue production rather than seek a permanent position. When the internship ended, he left to commit fully to music.

From computer science to music production

Born Nwogwonuwe Ikechukwu Elvis, the producer and mixing and mastering engineer trained in computer science. He began his career building websites and apps for startups, then joined friends to develop Lucid-Jungles, a gamified music player designed to change how people distribute and experience music. He continues to work on the project alongside his music career, bringing his interests in technology and creativity into the same space.

That combination shapes his approach to sound. “I approach music almost like an engineer, experimenting with sound, understanding how different elements interact, and using technology to turn ideas into something tangible,” he explains. Whether designing a sound, arranging a track or mixing it, he wants to understand how it works and what else it could become. Technical knowledge gives him the tools to pursue an instinct, test an idea and turn something he hears in his imagination into a finished recording.

Meeting Fido and making “Awolowo”

His partnership with Fido began after he moved to Lagos in 2022. At the time, Fido was writing songs for an artist Iyke was working with. After one session, Fido asked him for ten minutes on any beat, saying he had not recorded in a while. Those ten minutes changed Iyke’s plans. “The hunger, passion, and precision with which he delivered the music made me realise that I had found an artist I needed to stick with,” he says. He went home, packed a bag and moved in with Fido for the next four months.

The making of “Awolowo” shows how that partnership works in the studio. Iyke was experimenting with no fixed direction, building the instrumental on instinct. When Fido heard the bassline, he started freestyling over an idea that was still taking shape. A spoken passage emerged when Fido missed the timing of the beat. They kept it, and what might have been a discarded take became part of the song’s character. Asked which record best represents him, Iyke still chooses “Awolowo” because it brings together experimentation, instrumentation and space.

“One thing I understand about music is that vocals are also part of the instrumentation,” he says. “That’s why I love space in music.” That idea guides what goes into a track. Any extra layer has to add emotion, movement or character. If it pulls attention from the voice or the central idea, he leaves it out. He listens closely for arrangements in which the instrumental and vocal compete, making room for them to work together. That means knowing when a song has enough. As he puts it: “Sometimes, that space is exactly what makes the song beautiful.”

“Sometimes, that space is exactly what makes the song beautiful.”

“Joy Is Coming” and the work behind Olayemi

His work with Fido goes beyond the beat. He produced “Awolowo”, “Lungu” and “Dollarpor”, and contributed arrangement, mixing and mastering to “Joy Is Coming”, which peaked at No. 4 on the UK Official Afrobeats Chart. He also mixed and mastered the entire Olayemi EP. That project tested his patience: he mixed around 20 songs through late nights and repeated revisions, with eight making the final cut.

As tracks moved in and out of the tracklist, revisiting some older recordings presented a problem. His previous laptop had died, and although he still had its hard drive, he could no longer access the sessions as he needed to. Working from the finished mixes would have limited the changes he could make. So he tracked down the same laptop model, an Asus Q550LF, on eBay and bought it to recover the files and return to the work. “I didn’t want a technical limitation to compromise the work,” he says.

Co-producing “Joanna” with Alex Iwobi and Fido

He also co-produced “Joanna” with EM1X. The track brings Fido together with Alex Iwobi, the Nigerian international footballer who records as 17, and appears on Iwobi’s debut EP, More To Life. The session nearly did not happen. Fido and Iwobi were due to meet in London earlier that day, but the meeting was postponed. They eventually linked up late that night at a studio where Iwobi was working. Iyke arrived knowing him as a footballer; in the room, he discovered how musical Iwobi was.

The production took shape in under 15 minutes. Already familiar with Fido’s voice and instincts, Iyke knew where he wanted to take it. He sang melodies and basslines aloud, using his voice “almost like a musical sketchpad”, while EM1X played those ideas on instruments. “I could hear the arrangement in my head before it took its final form,” he says. “My job was to communicate that vision clearly enough for it to become sound.” After Fido recorded his part, they left for a show. On the way, Iyke realised he had forgotten his charger. When he returned to the studio, he found Iwobi halfway through recording his verse.

Building a future for creative ownership

His wider catalogue includes work with Kenzy, Daaya and Sani, while his experience in the industry has taught him what it takes to sustain a career. “Being talented isn’t always enough to build a sustainable career; access and relationships matter too,” he says. He is frustrated by gatekeeping, particularly when emerging creatives struggle to get the chance to show what they can do. Alongside developing his craft, he is learning how the business works and paying attention to the opportunities that allow talent to progress.

Those experiences are shaping his plans. Iyke wants to run a company that tackles problems he has faced as a creative: the gap between making work and earning from it, the difficulty of finding the right collaborators, and the need for stronger support for creative ownership. He sees each record and each relationship as a step towards the knowledge and connections he will need to build it.

The day “Awolowo” followed him from the office to his ride home showed him how far a record could travel. Now he wants to build systems that help other creatives reach their audiences, earn from their work and retain ownership of what they make. It is an ambition that brings his technical background and creative experience together. “Music production and hit songs are not the endgame for me,” he says.