The studio lights on *Public Eye* didn’t blind you. They warmed you. Faye had watched enough episodes growing up to know that Funmi Iyanda’s set wasn’t built to intimidate — it was built to make you forget the cameras existed. The kind of space where you started saying things you hadn’t planned on saying.

"You’re comfortable?" Funmi asked, settling into her chair like she’d been waiting all week for this conversation. She was taller than Faye expected, carrying herself with that ease that came from thirty years of asking strangers the questions nobody else would.

"I’m good." Faye smoothed her dress — burgundy, simple, nothing trying too hard. She’d learned that from watching JD. The bigger the moment, the less you performed.

Funmi opened with a soft smile, almost private. "56 million streams on *BLOOM*. When you hear that number, what lands first?"

Faye laughed before she could stop herself. "That somebody made a mistake. I’m still waiting for the email saying they counted wrong."

"But you knew the EP was good."

"I knew *I* liked it." Faye shrugged. "Liking your own work and knowing if it’s going to land are different things. I thought ’Free Mind’ was special. I thought ’Father’s Daughter’ was..." She trailed off, something catching. "Honest. I didn’t know if honest was what people wanted."

Funmi leaned forward half an inch. That was her gift — she made you feel the shift in attention. "Let’s start at the beginning. Not the beginning of the EP. The beginning of you and JD Records. How did that happen?"

Faye looked past the cameras for a second, finding the studio exit sign glowing green. She remembered a different exit, a different city, a different life.

"I ran," she said.

The word hung there. Funmi didn’t rush it.

"I was twenty maybe nineteen. My father. he’s in manufacturing, sales and many more, very traditional, very structured — he gave me a deadline. Two years. If I couldn’t make something real of music, something he could point to and say ’that’s my daughter’s work,’ I had to come home. Full time to take over the Family business, the whole arrangement."

"What did ’something real’ mean to him?"

"Respectability." Faye almost laughed. "Not money — he had money. Not fame — he thought fame was foolish. He wanted me to have something I could build a life on. Something stable. Music was..." She searched for the word. "A phase. The phase that wouldn’t end."

"And you disagreed."

"I loved him enough to want to prove him wrong without breaking his heart." Faye paused. "That’s a hard balance. I took the deadline seriously. I worked, I performed anywhere that would have me, I recorded demos that went nowhere. And few days before my time was up, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize."

Funmi nodded. "JD."

"His people." Faye’s voice changed slightly, carrying something warmer."I first met them at one of the club I performed at the gave me a complementary card and said i should call if i am ready to take thing to the next level and belive me i was scared of such thing."

"Oh so what made you change your mind ?" Fummi asked

"Well that would be my sister she was like just try it after all your deadline is already here just try and i did and they asked me a question when i got there."

"Oh come on Faye don’t stop halfway what did they ask?" Fummi sounded fustrated

"Hehe alright they asked me what is my motivation and what drives me to sing,"

"What did you tell them?"

"That I was angry. That I loved my father and I was angry at him and I didn’t know if that was allowed. That I wanted to make something beautiful out of feeling stuck." Faye’s hands moved when she spoke, small gestures she’d inherited from her mother. "And JD team asked me to sing and i sang my heart out.’"

"And that was it? You signed?"

"I asked for a day to think about it." Faye grinned, remembering. "they laughed. Said that was the right answer. Anyone who signs in the room without sleeping on it is either desperate or not serious, and thye didn’t work with either. I called my father that night. Told him I’d met someone who believed in my music. He said — " She stopped, the memory sharp enough to cut. "He said, ’You’ve got few weeks left, Faye. Make it count.’"

"That sounds like pressure."

"That sounds like a man who didn’t know how to say he was scared for me." Faye met Funmi’s eyes. "I’ve had time to think about it. He wasn’t being cruel. He was being a father who’d watched his daughter chase something invisible for a year and a half. He wanted me to win, but he was preparing himself for me to lose. That’s different."

Funmi let the silence breathe. Then: "The EP is called *BLOOM*. What was that pressure like?"

"Real." Faye exhaled. "Frosh went first, and his numbers were — you know what they were. KZ came after, and his story was so compelling, people locked in. Then it was me. And I kept thinking, if I don’t hold my own, I’m the reason people say women can’t do this. That’s not fair, but it’s what I felt. Then ’Free Mind’ dropped, and Sarah from the US came on the remix, and something shifted. People heard it."

"Genius called it ’a masterclass in vulnerability without fragility.’"

Faye blushed. Actual color rising in her cheeks. "I saw that. I read the annotation on ’Free Mind’ — they broke down the line where I sing *I just want to free my mind, but these chains feel like home.* Someone wrote that it sounds like I want to escape but I’m scared of what’s outside the cage. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly what I was trying to say."

"And ’Father’s Daughter’?" Funmi asked, gentler now. "That’s the one people keep coming back to."

Faye’s composure cracked, just slightly. Not performatively — genuinely. A wetness at the corner of her eye that she blinked back.

"I wrote that the night before my deadline ended," she said quietly. "I found out the EP had been approved, that JD was going to release it, that I’d made it. And instead of celebrating, I sat in my apartment and thought about my father. How I wanted him to hear that I loved him even when I was running from him. How I wanted him to know the running wasn’t about him — it was about me. I wrote it in two hours. I cried through the whole second verse."

She sang it now, soft, just a few lines:

> *"You built the walls to keep me warm,*

> *I climbed them just to see the sun,*

> *I’m still your daughter when the daylight’s gone,

> *Still your daughter when the song is done."*

*Genius Annotation — "Father’s Daughter"

> *"I’m still your daughter when the daylight’s gone"*

"Has he heard it?" Funmi asked.

Faye nodded, looking down at her hands. "He called me. Three in the morning, his time. I thought something was wrong he never calls that late. He just said my name. ’Faye.’ And then he was quiet for so long I thought the line dropped. When he finally spoke, he said " Her voice broke, rebuilt itself. "He said, ’I’m still your father when the song is done too.’ Then he hung up. He couldn’t say more. Neither could I."

The studio was silent. Somewhere in the control room, someone sniffed.

"That was two weeks ago," Faye continued. "He called again yesterday. Asked if I had time to visit. Said he’d like to hear the rest of the songs in person. Not on Spotify but in person." She smiled, watery but real. "I think that’s his way of saying he’s proud. He doesn’t have the words. But he’s learning to show up anyway."

Funmi reached over, touched Faye’s hand briefly. The gesture wasn’t planned you could see that. It was human.

"56 million streams," Funmi said. "What does that number mean now?"

Faye thought about it. Really thought.

"It means I don’t have to run anymore," she said. "I can walk. I can stand still if I want. I can call my father and tell him I’m okay without needing him to believe it for me to feel it. The number is it’s beautiful. It’s validation. But I’d have made the music anyway. That’s the part I want people to hear in *BLOOM*. Not the success. The stubbornness. The refusal to become someone else just because the world asked nicely."

She paused, then added: "My father taught me that, actually. He just didn’t know he was teaching me to use it on him."

Funmi laughed, delighted. "Last question. What’s next?"

"More music. More truth. More learning to walk instead of run." Faye’s smile held edges now, confidence that had been earned. "JD says the first project is the introduction. The second project is the statement. I’m ready to make my statement."

The interview ended. The cameras cut. Funmi stayed in her seat, holding Faye’s hand a moment longer than production required.

"You did beautifully," she said, not for the audience, for Faye alone.

"Thank you."

"Your father is a lucky man. He gets to watch you become this."

Faye walked out of the studio into the Lagos afternoon, heat wrapping around her like something familiar. Her phone buzzed. A text from her father: *"The car is waiting at the airport when you’re ready. No deadline this time."*

She stood on the sidewalk and cried. Not from pain. From the overwhelming, terrifying, beautiful feeling of being seen.

---

**Comments — Public Eye Interview (YouTube/Twitter/X)**

**@TemiAdeyemi** · 2h

The way Funmi asked about her father and Faye just... dissolved. But not in a bad way. In a "I’ve been holding this together for two years and someone finally asked the right question" way. Protect her at all costs. #FayeBloom

**@MarcusInLDN** · 1h

"Father’s Daughter" hit different after hearing the backstory. I was just vibing to it before. Now I can’t get through the second verse without thinking about my own dad. Music should do this. #BLOOM56M

**@ChiomaEjiofor** · 3h

The annotation on Genius about "the chains feel like home" — THAT. That exact thing. I spent my whole twenties running from everything that made me comfortable because I thought comfort meant giving up. Faye put it into words I couldn’t find. #FreeMind

**@DJSpinall** · 45m

Real talk — @JDRecordsNG’s rollout has been surgical. But Faye’s the one that made me feel something. 56M is deserved. The album gonna be dangerous. #BLOOM

**@Faye’sDad_Probably** · 2h (parody account)

*"I’m still your father when the song is done"* — Sir, you are breaking the entire internet. Call your daughter. Tell her again. We need to hear it. 😭

**@NigerianBarbie** · 1h

She said she RAN. Not "I pursued my dreams." Not "I followed my passion." She RAN. The honesty is what separates JD’s artists from everyone else. They all got trauma and they all putting it in the music. #FayeBloom #PublicEye

**@AdebolaWrites** · 4h

Funmi Iyanda hasn’t lost a step in twenty years. The way she held that silence after Faye talked about the phone call? That’s not interview technique. That’s humanity. Some conversations need space to land. This was one.

**@YemiAladeMusic** · 30m

56 MILLION. 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬 Faye, you are proving them wrong with FACTS. Keep blooming sis, we see you! 🌸 #BLOOM

**@KojoAnnan** · 2h

My father called me after watching this. We haven’t spoken in six months. Just... thank you, Faye. Sometimes art isn’t about the artist. It’s about who needed to hear it. #FathersDaughter

**@ToolzBee** · 1h

Frosh had me in my feelings last week. Faye has me calling my dad THIS week. @JDRecordsNG is running a full service emotional operation over here. Who’s next?? 😩 #BLOOM #PublicEye

**@SarafinaBlake** (Sarah, featured on "Free Mind") · 5h

Working with Faye in the studio, I knew immediately. This woman has something you can’t teach. It’s not technique — it’s truth. 56M and just getting started. Honored to be on this journey with you sis 💜 #BLOOM #FreeMind

**@TheRealKZ** · 3h 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

My sister from another mother. We came in together, we rise together. 56M is not a number, it’s a PROOF OF CONCEPT. @FayeOfficial — they sleeping on us, wake them up! 🔥 #JDRecordsNG #BLOOM