Kogi-born alternative street-soul artist Llona opens his sophomore album “On The Road” with “Monster Or Not,” and it immediately tells you this project is not playing by conventional rules.
The track sets the album’s emotional temperature from the first second. Llona does not ease you in with something safe. He walks straight into the tension between self-awareness and self-destruction – the question of whether the person you are becoming through the grind is someone you actually want to be. That kind of introspective honesty as an opener is a bold call. But it earns the listener’s attention immediately.
The production blends ambient synths and indie rock guitar loops with trap-influenced 808s in a way that feels organic rather than experimental for its own sake. So the sound serves the mood rather than distracting from it. Because “Monster Or Not” is a writing-led record – everything in the arrangement exists to amplify the emotion in the words.
Llona’s rasp-tinged vocal delivery stays controlled throughout. He does not oversell the vulnerability. The delivery stays grounded even when the writing reaches into dark territory. That restraint is what makes the record linger after it ends – you feel the weight of what he is saying rather than just hearing him perform it.
Within “On The Road” as a full project – written across 25 Nigerian cities on a bus – “Monster Or Not” frames everything that follows. It asks the question the whole album tries to answer. And that structural intelligence sets the project apart from most Afrobeats-adjacent releases attempting the same emotional depth.
Stream “Monster Or Not” on the “On The Road” album and tell us – does Llona answer the question by the time the album ends?
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