₦airaland Forum

ESE (Julia Otobo) is a Nigerian singer-songwriter, multi-genre creative, and holistic wellness advocate whose music bridges soul, folk, Afro-pop, Afro-fusion, and healing soundscapes. Hailing from a richly diverse cultural heritage rooted in Delta, Anambra, and Benin states, ESE’s voice carries an emotional depth that speaks directly to the heart powerful yet tender, reflective yet vibrant.

Her debut project, the five-track Inner Peace EP, showcased her early Afro-Soul, pop, and fusion sensibilities. Subsequent releases including This Love, Finalé, Autumn Nights, Power of My Mind, and ZOOM further illustrate her genre-bending approach and her ability to translate inner life into compelling sound while exploring emotional vulnerability.

Her early catalogue also highlights a natural ease for collaboration, working seamlessly with peers in music production and composition both locally and across borders with underground rappers and composers from America and Europe.

In 2023, ESE completed the ALTEM Women in Music certification by the Spanish Embassy of Nigeria, strengthening her commitment to community, advocacy, and the empowerment of women in music.
As an independent artist, ESE has carved out a unique space rooted in authenticity, community, and transformation. Her music goes beyond entertainment, it's medicine for the soul. Writing from lived experience, she uses melody and rhythm to explore healing, self-empowerment, and emotional liberation, evolving toward a more intimate, soul-folk expression.

Beyond her recordings, ESE is the founder of NAPPYESE Wellness, a holistic lifestyle brand and social enterprise that integrates music, yoga, meditation, retreats, and community healing gatherings. Through initiatives such as the Inner Peace EP Tour & Full Moon Retreat and the annual nkà ọgwụgwọ: The Art of Healing Festival, she creates spaces where art meets wellness and music becomes a tool for collective catharsis and personal growth.

ESE began writing songs as a teenager, inspired by church choir experiences, Disney soundtracks, and a wide range of music absorbed at home. After several years living and working internationally as a model in South Africa and New York, she spent 90 days in India exploring wellness practices and training as a yoga instructor. She returned to Lagos in 2019 to pursue music and wellness more intentionally.
Her musical influences include Sade, India Arie, Nina Simone, Jhené Aiko, Enya, and AURORA.

You can find her original music and music videos on her website https://nappyese.com/e-s-e

Abuja, Nigeria – 26th July 2025

nkà ọgwụgwọ: The Art of Healing Festival, a groundbreaking wellness and art gathering designed for Nigerian youth and creative empaths, took place this July with a bold mission: to create a safe, soulful space for mental health, cultural healing, and artistic expression.

Organized by NAPPYESE Wellness, the festival brought together over 50+ participants, including musicians, poets, dancers, wellness practitioners, visual artists, and youth volunteers, fostering a day of community transformation grounded in Holistic Wellness, creativity, and care.

“nkà ọgwụgwọ isn’t just a festival,” said Ese Julia Otobo, founder of NAPPYESE Wellness and curator of the experience. “It’s a living sanctuary where young Africans gather to reconnect to their inner wisdom, express unspoken pain, and discover joy again, through art, through self expression, and through togetherness.”

Highlights from the 2025 Edition:

🎭 Healing Performances: Spoken word, Live music and dance performances, offered pathways for emotional release.

👩🏿‍🎨 Art Exhibition: Curated with intention, each piece reflected personal and collective healing journeys, inviting guests to pause, reflect, and reconnect. It gave voice to the inner worlds of young Nigerian artists who are using creativity as a tool for transformation.



🎨 Art Therapy & Expression Workshops: Safe spaces to express grief, identity, and healing through guided creative painting practice.

🎤 Big Sister Empath Podcast Live Recording: A heart-to-heart talk session on healing, boundaries, burnout, and breaking mental health taboos.


🎼 Sound Meditation: Guided by skilled sound healing practitioner, guests were gently led into stillness using the soothing vibrations of crystal bowls and chimes.


🛍️ Vendor Market: Five community vendors showcased and sold healing-centered products, from herbal blends to handmade art.

🤝 Ticket Sponsorships: Over 15 tickets sponsored for young people needing access to wellness spaces, funded by community partners.


With generous support from sponsors, partners, and volunteers, nkà ọgwụgwọ became more than an event, it became a community.


A MOVEMENT FOR NIGERIAN YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH


As rates of depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion soar among Nigeria’s youth, nkà ọgwụgwọ responds with a culturally rooted, accessible, and creative solution.

“Many youth can’t afford therapy,” said Nigerian singer Ese Otobo. “But they can show up to a space where they’re seen, heard, and held. This is grassroots mental health care, rooted in contemporary African culture”

The festival team expresses deep gratitude to its artists, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, healing hosts, and every single attendee who made the day a success.

WATCH THE HIGHLIGHTS + JOIN THE WAITLIST


Relive the beauty. Feel the energy.

✨ Watch the Highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xz7sen6P0E?si=w54kApOFI8hMi7Lu

📝 Join the 2026 Waitlist
http://nappyese.com/events/nkaogwugwowaitlist2026/

Be the first to know about next year’s edition and opportunities to sponsor, volunteer, or attend.
nkà ọgwụgwọ is just getting started

For Media Inquiries, Sponsorships, or Future Collaborations

Contact: NAPPYESE

Phone: +2347014071794

Email: nappyese@gmail.com

Website: http://nappyese.com/events/nka-ogwugwo/

Instagram @nappyese | @nappyesemusic



About NAPPYESE Wellness

NAPPYESE Wellness is a social holistic wellness and lifestyle company elevating the physical, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being for African empaths, highly sensitive people, and creatives seeking wholeness. Through festivals, wellness services such as guided yoga & meditation, massage therapy, nature centered group retreats and community outreach programs, NAPPYESE is reclaiming the art of African healing one sacred gathering at a time.

NAPPYESE is founded by Nigerian Multi-disciplinary Artist Singer-Songwriter ESE

If there is one Nigerian Artist constantly re-defining herself it's ESE of NAPPYESE

The Yoga & Fitness loving music artist has finally found a term to define her love for cruising through musical genres at the whim of her sonar expressions,"Genre Bending". ESE is finding her voice, her style, her unique sounds and we are here to enjoy every step of the journey with her

Closing off year 2023 with a brand new banging Afro-Pop hit tune ZOOM and kicking off its release with a 30 day Twerk challenge on her Instagram and Tiktok social media pages. Much to the delight of her fans and followers.

See here: https://www.instagram.com/nappyesemusic

ESE describes her new record ZOOM in quote

"I wrote ZOOM to support my healing process and reclaim my body for myself"
[i][/i]
ZOOM's theme aligns with doing the inner work (Reflection & Action) required to release oneself of mental and emotional trauma facilitated through movement and breath work (prana) as healing tools or strategies. A workout favorite! The track also features American underground rapper ThatHooliganCasanova on the intro. The finished track was recorded in 2021 in Delta State, Nigeria and mixed and mastered by Crossroadz.

Click here to pre-save ZOOM OUT DEC 26TH https://share.amuse.io/j03YL9qKNlbY

On Wednesday November 15th 2023,

ESE the Nigerian Soul Singer- Songwriter features as a live guest Artist on TVC's Wake Up Nigeria Show.

She presents her 2023 hit record Power of my Mind rendering a soulful performance that leaves watchers feeling refreshed and inspired.

Watch her full performance here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAjPzX-Davs


You can listen to more of ESE's music here
https://nappyese.com/e-s-e

ESE is an upcoming Deltan - Anambran soul singer that debuted on the music scene in 2019 with her debut single So It Goes. Since then she has released more singles compiled to her INNER PEACE EP including tracks like All we need is Love, Baby Boy you know say, No Food & Dropout

In 2022, she dropped a re-written cover of Patoranking's I'm in Love titled This Love
Followed by a collaboration with an American Rapper ThatHooliganCasanova on her record Autumn Nights

She is set to release her latest single titled Power of my Mind a collaboration whose soundtrack was composed by an Italian Sound Composer Nywesh on the 30th of June 2023 her website https://nappyese.com/e-s-e and all DSPs.

ESE describes this record as a tale of her personal life experience and her journey as a young Nigerian woman manifesting travelling through the globe with the Power of her Mind.

PRE-ADD/SAVE Power of my Mind to your Library here https://share.amuse.io/RF8EbKnHZhi1

Lol,I pray oo. Pls Ayobami DM me ur pin on twitter @juleedondiva or send me a message on facebook juleedondiva Otobo

Computer science. Do u use a blackberry??

Whew!! Thank God I'm not alone!! I'm going crazy here,n I can't concentrate on my other commitments,dey shud release dis thing so dat we can plan forward,

I wrote my exam on the fourteenth of Juneand the results are yet to be relleased. Does it usually take this long? Pls I am very impatient to start my life in babcock University, when is the second batch admission list and result coming out??

Worried gurl

Please I live all the way in lagos and I don't do hope this information is authentic.howerever I don't kno how to make dese payments.is it not possible to make payments with cash to the banks??

If so wot r d account no's and which banks are we paying too.

Pls help.girl in distress

Julia Daniel


BB-23810215
Email: juliaotobo@gmail.com
STATISTICS:

height-5ft 10
Bust-36½
Waist-28
Hips-36
Shoulders-19

Interested in Ushering and modelling jobs in Lagos

pendo89: Dreamers!
Now before you mistake me for a racist. Am not dark so am attracted to black.
You want to know why we say Black ,Tall ,handsome? This is mine.

Black represents masculinity,toughness,survival ,jungle (Not wild),.That inturn screams protection.Its just a mind thing that I cant put into words very well.
Brown screams ,mummy's boy,soft,sissy or spoilt. Am sorry but again its just a mind thing.

Now I am very much aware of the fact that not all blacks are tough and not all browns are soft. Its just preferences.

Tall is secure.It makes me feel protected,covered and secure as well.

No attacks pliz.I only spoke my mind

Me be digging dis post..hwas a point....I really ddnt know abt fair guys,some of thhem go over d top in maintaining their skin and after a while it jst looks gross.nd dey always hv dis cocky air around them,even d one wen no fyn sef go tink sey I'm fresh.bt dark guys nw...dark guys r naturals.no excessive skin maintainance,.all dey nid is sunglasses and boss afftershave nd they're good to go

Evryone here is jst talking trash.mot one single (mature) MAN in this place.
Boys...yall dnt know wot a 'real' relationship is.so please stop talking trash.jat want a girlfrnd for dd fun off it,imagine someone saying his girlfrnd comes after arsernal_hmm! I laugh..
Nobody say make u no watch ur game.if u kno te troube ladies bring is too much_abe who sendd u? Stay ur own and kip all ur moni nah..abi na by force??

They complain abt buyin this,buying dat_shey u no no say u go buy before?? Abi who caRry ur balls go there??
Bettr stop all these foolish complains.
Wen ur mates lyk akon are singing chop my moni, una dey here dey complain
LOL..

Wen they start taking me for granted,not calling or textin as often as they use to.
Wen they love to brag abt ow many bottles dey downed at the club
Wen I discover dey talk abt teir mums all the time

Hello,very nice of u to do dis donoeze.pls I had 236 in my utme exam and I want to go for pharmacy,is dis score enouf?? Like ow much do I need to score in my pst utme to be able to get dis course without fail??
I live in lagos,is there anywhhere I can get d pstutme past questions from around??

Thanks!

Hello,I'm really new here and I don't really understand how things work yet.I jst wrote the previous utme exams and I scored 246.I put in for pharmacy in uniben.pls is dis score eno to get me that course?? Wot is their cut off,how much do I need to score in their pstutme to make it.? Pls I'm really worried.anybody help??