Teju Olarewaju: Powering Africa's music tech evolution

Before music was created inside laptops, it came to life in rooms. Instrumentalists and singers gathered in studio booths, composing and rehearsing sounds in real time before recording them onto tapes... Before music was created inside laptops, it came to life in rooms. Instrumentalists and singers gathered in studio booths, composing and rehearsing sounds in real time before recording them onto tapes. Today, most of the music we hear is composed entirely inside digital audio workstations (DAWs), with several added benefits that have significantly transformed the creative process of making music globally. However, while Afrobeats -- and African music, in general -- is presently regarded as a power player in the global music scene, all the modern technology used in creating music digitally still comes from the West. While Nigeria, specifically, has shaped the sound of global music, it has rarely shaped the technologies that make that sound possible. In a move to reposition Africa's role in modern music technology, 23-year-old Nigerian audio engineer Tejumoluwa Olarewaju recently developed The Brown Noise generator, the first professional audio plugin made by a Nigerian. Audio plugins are to digital audio workstations what salt is to food. They help expand recording capabilities, allowing engineers to add new instruments, manipulate frequencies, and shape the spatial depth of sound. Essentially, the Brown Noise generator is an audio plugin (think of it as a software instrument) designed to produce deep, low-frequency ambient noise used by producers and audio engineers in mixing and mastering records, while listeners hear it for inducing focus or calmness. Raised across the UK, US, Asia and Nigeria, Tejumoluwa Olarewaju is a maverick blazing a trail within the global audio engineering landscape. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, Olarewaju has amassed a chunk of achievements, from serving as College Salutatorian to earning Dolby Atmos/Pro Tools Post certifications, to receiving the Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation award, among others. He has also earned significant industry attention, with a Cinema Audio Society nomination, and several contributions to heavyweight projects for Google and Paramount+, among others. By creating The Brown Noise Generator, Olarewaju is among a new generation of African engineers evolving modern music production as well as Africa's role in shaping the music-tech responsible for that. In this week's Guardian Music edition, the audio-engineering guru sheds more light on his Brown Noise Generator plugin; his experience creating it and what that means for Afrobeats; as well as his plans to directly impact the audio engineering scene in Afrobeats, among others. Where did you grow up? I've lived in several places, including Lagos. I spent my formative years partly in the UK, spent some time in a small Southeast Asian country called Brunei, and later moved to the United States for school. How did you get started in music and sound engineering? From a very young age, I've always loved sound. I used to watch films and pay attention to how sound effects were placed in space. I would notice how something could move from the left speaker to the right speaker and how that spatial processing helped convey emotion or action. That curiosity pushed me toward sound design. When I started looking at universities, my advisor at Mount Kelly in the UK told me about the Savannah College of Art and Design. They have one of the first sound design programs in the United States, and it has produced several Emmy-winning sound designers. After researching it, I decided to enrol. While I was there, I held a number of student leadership roles. I served as a Lead pre-college assistant for the university's 2025 Rising Star program, which gives talented students exposure to university-level classes before enrollment. I also worked as a sound design student ambassador, and for the past four years, I have been the department's peer tutor, helping students who need support in their sound design courses. Along the way, I obtained Adobe certification. I also earned Avid Pro Tools Post certification with the help of my professor, who played a very important role in shaping my understanding of post-production sound. I've always been especially interested in mixing. Last year, I was nominated for the Cinema Audio Society Student Recognition Award and attended the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton, where I was surrounded by some of the top re-recording mixers in Hollywood. I am also a recipient of the Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation Award, which is given to top audio engineering students around the world. Recently, three projects I worked on were nominated for awards administered by the Southeast Regional Emmy Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Two of them are commercials -- Heinz "Wake It Up!" advertisement and a Subway "Mayday" commercial -- where I handled sound and re-recording mixing. Another project called "Bird's Eye" was nominated in the long-form fiction category, where I am credited as a sound mixer. Much of your training happened in the West. At what point did you start noticing the gap between Western innovation in sound technology and Africa's limited presence in that space? That realisation came when I started teaching myself mixing techniques online. Most of the tutorials available were created by people who didn't look like me. There's nothing wrong with that, but it made me think about representation in the field. I usually try to learn how to mix many different genres. If I want to understand rock mixing, for example, I'll go watch tutorials on how a professional rock mix should sound. When I searched for high-quality tutorials about mixing Afrobeats, I noticed there were far fewer resources from African engineers working at a high professional level. That made me think about how important it would be for more of us to operate in those spaces while also teaching others. I learned a lot from YouTubers like Benie Macaulay. That interest gradually expanded into plugin development. I've always been fascinated by plugins. Whenever I try a plugin I like, I go through the manual and study how it works. Audio plugin design is unique because it involves both digital signal processing and interface design. You have to write the code, but also build the graphical interface. The market for these tools is dominated by Western companies. I thought it would be interesting to create tools that serve practical engineering needs while also having broader everyday uses. Your project involves brown noise, which many people may not be familiar with. What exactly is brown noise and how does it connect to Afrobeats? Brown noise, or Brownian noise, is often described as the deep sound of nature. You hear it in waterfalls, heavy rain, and ocean waves. It has a particular frequency slope that many people find natural and calming. When I compared it to pink noise, which is commonly used in professional mixing and mastering, I found that brown noise had soothing properties that fascinated me. I started experimenting with it while working on low-end balance in Afrobeats. Modern Afrobeats have very punchy low frequencies, especially with 808 bass. I discovered that brown noise helped me achieve that warmth and balance more quickly. That experiment led to the development of a brown noise generator now known as DriftTone. The idea was to create something useful both inside and outside the studio. It can be used as a wellness sound to help people sleep or relax, but it can also help audio engineers tune their speakers and manage low-frequency balance in a mix. Research has also shown that brown noise can help mask disruptive sounds and may assist people dealing with anxiety or attention issues. If someone opens the app, what exactly happens? Is it like a streaming platform where you press play on music? It's different from a streaming platform. There is no music library. The app generates brown noise continuously. Users can adjust the volume and the frequency range. The generator works within a range between about 80 hertz and 300 hertz. Lower settings sound like a deep rumble, while higher settings resemble wind or waves. Different people prefer different ranges depending on their age or personal comfort level. For producers and engineers, how would they actually use the plugin? When the plugin is released, producers will be able to download it from the Cosmic Audio Lab website and use it inside major digital audio workstations. They can run the noise generator and use equalisation tools to calibrate their monitoring environment. This helps them balance the low end more accurately so their mixes translate well across different playback systems. On a broader level, Africa rarely produces its own music tools. Do you see your work as part of a larger shift? I believe it's a small step in the right direction. For a long time, we've depended on tools developed elsewhere. Those tools are excellent, and they've been built through decades of research. But there is also room for us to create our own solutions. We have access to the same information and technology. African engineers should be competing globally, not only as musicians but also as builders of the tools used to create music. Do you think Western plugins are optimised for African music? They are very good tools, and engineers here have adapted them effectively. However, there is an opportunity to combine machine learning techniques with traditional digital signal processing to design tools that better suit our production styles. Are you already collaborating with African engineers or producers while building Cosmic Audio Lab? Yes. I recently spoke with a mixing and mastering engineer who runs a studio in Lekki called The Atmos Room BBM, and we discussed possible collaboration on a future plugin. I've also had conversations with engineers connected to major studios in Lagos, such as Dr Adepetun's DAPC Studios, Africa's first Dolby Atmos-certified studio, who received early prototypes of the Brown Noise Generator. Those relationships helped me get feedback and ensure that the tools we build are actually useful for the community. Besides speaking to African talent, I have also been having conversations with top re-recording mixers and supervising sound editors in Hollywood such as Eugene Gearty, an Oscar- and Emmy-winning sound designer, as well as Mandell Winter and Alexandra Fehrman, who both work at Sony Pictures Entertainment in Los Angeles. You mentioned Dolby Atmos certification earlier. Why is that important? Dolby Atmos is essentially the future of immersive sound. Traditional stereo mixes only use left and right channels. With Dolby Atmos, you can place sound in three-dimensional space. Audio can appear behind you, above you, or moving around the room. The format is already used across film and streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Paramount+, and Apple Music. Having certification in that format prepares engineers for how media will be experienced in the future. What is your long-term vision for Cosmic Audio Lab and African music technology? My goal is to innovate and create a space where we can build tools for ourselves. Afrobeats is performing very well globally, but Nigerians should also be visible in other roles beyond being performers. We need representation in post-production and technical fields within the industry. Through my work, I hope to inspire younger creatives to explore audio engineering and technology. There is a lot of potential in this field, and the future of audio engineering is still wide open.