“Looking beyond the streets that he came from, Magic WRLD is looking at the universe and using music as a way of questioning the world we live in and our place in it.”
Starlink (released April 3rd 2025) is the work of Lagos-based artist Magic WRLD and is a project which takes the listener into a world of cosmic imagination, electronic textures and reflections on our relationship with the planet. The original album is very much about the universe, climate change and the way the world revolves around us. It’s a very expansive project which brings those big questions about existence into a musical context that is very much of an atmospheric nature. Rather than do it the traditional way, Magic WRLD has built the album around dreamy electronic beats which gives it a very ethereal quality. There’s a very deliberate contrast between the very earthly nature of climate change and the vastness of the universe. Climate change is an issue which is very much grounded in the reality of our planet, the universe is an issue which is very much about the scale of things and how small we can feel in the face of that. That juxtaposition is at the heart of the project. The sound of the album is very much a key part of that. The dreamy electronic bed is the perfect vehicle for the kind of expansive subject matter that the album is about. It was recorded in Chevron, Lagos and the city is very much part of the perspective. Lagos isn’t just a location on the album, it’s part of the lens through which the project is viewed. The city, the movement of the city, the problems of the city and the experience of growing up on the mainland are all part of the way Magic WRLD has come to understand the world. Starlink is a project which looks outwards, but is very much rooted in that local experience.
The album is even more interesting in the context of the personal journey that led to it. Magic WRLD speaks of the struggle to get beyond the confines of his environment, the sheer amount of time he’s spent working to get the money together to record and promote the project. That determination is what gives the project such resonance when it comes to the theme of movement, of moving on and moving beyond. The journey from the streets to the studio has been a long one and those experiences are fundamental to the music. It’s not a case of separating the man from the music at all, it’s the very essence of the project. Spencer is another contributor to the project, and the influence of Lagos is still very much there. Magic WRLD’s description of himself as a “different man with occupation” is a very unusual thing to say, but it’s a very telling statement in that it suggests a man who sees his work as part of a broader commitment to discipline, self mastery and purpose. That is in fact what the album is about. The world is in a constant state of flux and in order to understand where we are in that world we have to be aware of it, we have to be persistent and we have to be prepared to look beyond the obvious. Starlink doesn’t need to provide any easy answers to the questions it raises. Its appeal is in the sheer ambition of it all, the ambition to explore those questions through atmosphere and electronic sound. The combination of the cosmic with the climate crisis gives it a very clear conceptual underpinning which goes far beyond the personal narrative of the artist. “The universe may be infinite, but the world we live in is our responsibility.” That’s the tension at the heart of the project. The desire to imagine something beyond, and the recognition of the responsibility we have to the planet and to the lives that are happening on it.
Starlink is a significant step in Magic WRLD’s development as an independent artist coming out of Lagos. It’s the product of an ambition, a set of personal struggles and an interest in things beyond the immediate day to day. The dreamy electronic sound is the album’s sound, its direction, and the themes are very much about the relationship between man, nature and the universe. What’s distinctive about the project is the way it brings all those things together: a Lagos artist looking at his city and looking out to the stars, a personal journey of hard work and perseverance that’s also a journey into the wider forces that affect us all. There is a real sense of artistic curiosity there and it’s someone who is genuinely interested in creating a sound and an identity that isn’t going to be limited by what’s expected. The fact that Strange Life is mentioned as his next album suggests that this is a journey he intends to continue and Starlink is a very important step in that journey. For those people who like atmospheric electronic music with some ideas behind it, this is a very good introduction to an artist who is exploring his own creative space. It’s not just a statement about the universe really, it’s a statement about the desire to go beyond your circumstances and to take your own personal experience and make it something that can go further. Magic WRLD’s story starts in Lagos but his musical imagination is looking much further afield.
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