QSC Aspiring Interview: Wizard Chan on the healing journey of ‘Healers Chapel’

Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Wizard Chan is an artist masterfully combining the traditional musical sounds of Africa with contemporary African pop and hip hop. It’s getting him noticed internationally, with songs like Loner (Alone) doing huge numbers on TikTok and streaming platforms. He chats to Headliner about his new album, Healers Chapel, which deals with his own healing journey, and his hopes that it will take his listeners on a healing path themselves.

Since releasing debut single Halo Halo in 2020, Wizard Chan’s career began building traction, particularly off the back of 2022 single Earth Song, becoming a hit on TikTok and gaining the attention of Chris Brown in the US, as well as some of Nigeria’s most notable producers. With his new album, he has his sights firmly set on going fully international as a music artist.

Hi there, Wizard Chan! Could we begin by hearing a bit about growing up in Port Harcourt and your earliest memories of music?

I am the first person in my family to dabble in music. It's a very special thing to be the first to walk this path. I didn’t have anyone to guide me. I wrote my first song when I was about 14 years old. Someone died in school, and I wrote the song as a tribute to him. It felt good to write something that felt real. That simple act of writing that song has run through my life, and now it's just become my way of making music. It always feels like I have a connection to the people who listen to my music. As humans, I believe we all suffer the same things, just in different ways. When someone is able to be bold enough to tell their stories that are real, it connects with a whole lot of people.

After writing your first songs in your early teens, when did you start seeing music as a career or something you’d like to do with your life?

I don't see music as a job. It's just a way of life. I cannot do without it. I don't like to see it as a job, because then it stresses me out. It's more like a daily routine for me. It's more like, what have you experienced today? Or what did you hear that someone experienced?

How was the experience of releasing your first official single Halo Halo in 2020, and seeking to create that connection with people that is so important and meaningful to you?

So the funny thing is, Halo Halo is not my official single that was released. What happened is that I took down all my old music I had online before. When I was going into music, I was trying to be like everyone else. I discovered that, nah, this is not the path I wanted to go down. So I took all that down and just recreated myself. And that was Halo Halo. It was a very chaotic period because we had just shot the video in the northern part of Nigeria, where I was living at the time. A month or two later, COVID took over.

Two years later, your song Earth Song really changed things for you. Why do you think that song in particular really connected with people?

That song is a masterpiece. I don’t think it was because I built any following, because that song blew up on TikTok at first, when I was more focused on Instagram. Someone took a clip of the song and posted it on TikTok, and it blew up. It felt like magic. My followers were just skyrocketing. This was mainly in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, not Nigerians at the time. And that led to Chris Brown posting it on his Instagram. That changed everything for me. Nigerians came in when Don Jazzy posted my video and said, ‘This is a breath of fresh air.’ And Nigerians just stormed the place. It's been upwards from there.

How do you define your sound in your own words, the way you combine traditional African instrumentation with genres like hip hop and R&B?

First of all, I always try to remember that I'm African. It's something that I am unapologetic about. People over here tend to say, ‘Make your music global.’ But what is global music? In a sense, it's just something that was properly marketed to the world, and the world kind of hears it, loves it, and accepts it. Like the soundtrack of The Lion King, African sounds and everything. I don't think music has a limitation. It's all about marketing. I always want to infuse African sounds. I love to infuse where I'm from, which is Nigeria. I love trap, I love hip hop, I love African percussion. I love drill. That's why I'm called Wizard in the first place. It feels like nothing is impossible when it comes to music for me. They tag all of us as afrobeats. I personally feel like that's an umbrella, because I don't think afrobeats is my sound. Africans are so diverse as a people that our sound is not the same.

Congratulations on the release of your latest album, Healer's Chapel! How are you feeling now that it’s out in the world?

I feel so good. I feel confident and free, because it's something I've always wanted to do in terms of the topic. The name explains everything. I am an artist who makes music like a story. I don't want to make albums like playlists. I'm happy because this is my story of healing physically, spiritually, mentally, in friendships, and in love. I have put it all in this album. I've tried to tell my story.

You’ve mentioned that the album is not just about healing yourself, but also the listener.

It's more about them. I am just like a case study. For example, when I talk about things like loss, I don't take loss as something to cry about. I take it that the time has come. You've done your job, and it's time for you to go into greater things. But there are some people that have not come with that understanding, and that kind of pulls them back. There's a song called In My Defence that talks about a broken friendship. I try to explain that it's okay. You don't have to beat yourself up. This is just me being vulnerable, being human, because in Nigeria, they see me as a spiritual guy. It’s me showing where I am, and that we can all become better. You can heal yourself. You can be healed.

One of the album’s singles was Amen (God My Dealer). What can you tell us about that song?

I don't smoke anymore, and I'm saying God Almighty is my dealer. He makes me feel as high as possible. So amen to that. I spoke about not falling into the wrong love, which takes your peace and tears you to pieces. It’s about the fact that no one is coming to save you. You have to save yourself, giving everything to God Almighty.

One of the album’s singles was Amen (God My Dealer). What can you tell us about that song?

I don't smoke anymore, and I'm saying God Almighty is my dealer. He makes me feel as high as possible. So amen to that. I spoke about not falling into the wrong love, which takes your peace and tears you to pieces. It’s about the fact that no one is coming to save you. You have to save yourself, giving everything to God Almighty.

Which leads us to the track Sober. It sounds like becoming sober is really important to you as an artist and a person right now.

It is important to me, not because I think weed is bad. Maybe just the consumption pattern is the problem. When I was much younger, we used to believe that the reason we wrote beautiful songs was because we were smoking weed. And I didn't like that. I didn't want to attribute my talent to weed. So being able to make music without a substance means the world to me. This is three years now without weed.

As an artist making such vulnerable music about healing through life’s challenges, what does the phrase Play Out Loud mean to you?

I would say boldness is number one. And it also means not keeping your music to yourself. Being able to say unapologetically, ‘I've made this masterpiece, and the world should hear it.’ And making sure that my stories are being heard around the world.

How is the remainder of 2025 shaping up for you?

It's looking beautiful. The good thing about my career has been that every single year has always been better than the previous. I hope that with this album, I'll be able to go more international beyond Nigeria. But the year is going very well.

Finally, if someone was brand new to your music, is there one song or project you’d love them to check out first?

The project I will point out is called The Messenger. That's a masterpiece, one of the best EPs that ever came out of Nigeria. There are songs like Legacy, Demons & Angels and the song that blew me up, Earth Song. The Messenger is everything. Sometimes it scares me if I'm ever going to beat it. It was so good that people did not believe that I was Nigerian!