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Saturday 30 June 2012
Timaya-Go Down Low
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Rilwan - Losing My Senses ft Flowssick
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NEGO TH -No One Most Wanted ft Terry G & Vector
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Ms.Chief - Wantin' (Female Remix) featuring Yemi Alade, Kel & Zara Gretti
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Jahborne ft LKT - Lana
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Adele expecting baby number one
What could possibly make Adele happier than the tons of awards she’s received this year? A baby it is!
Just today, Friday, June 29, 2012, the UK singer announced via her website that she and boyfriend Simon Konecki are expecting their first child together.
‘I’m delighted to announce that Simon and I are expecting our first child together. I wanted you to hear the news direct from me, obviously we’re over the moon and very excited but please respect our privacy at this precious time. Yours always, Adele xx’, the 24-year-old Grammy Award singer wrote.
Adele met Konecki, 36, last summer in the UK and the pair have been dating ever since although she announced their relationship just this year, back in January.
It’s been a big year for Adele and life is about to get even more exciting as the singer announced that she and boyfriend Simon Konecki are expecting their first child together.
Simon already has a five-year-old daughter from his previous marriage with Clary, ‘whom Adele has met and absolutely adores’, a source told the Daily Star back in March.
Adele has won over 77 awards to date, including eight Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, and three American Music Awards.
Friday 29 June 2012
Eldee-Undeniable album track list
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 1. HIGHER – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – features K9 & Sojay, 2 Trybe artists that will cause a major shock-wave this year. K9 is undoubtedly the most talented young artist I know, plus he’s a sick producer. Sojay by far the best male vocalist to have come out of Nigeria yet. E go be like say I dey make mouth now…sha wait for their singles. “Higher” was recorded at my home studio in Lagos.
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 2. BEEN THERE DONE THAT – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – By far one of the easiest records I’ve ever made. The beat was talking to me from the first time I heard it, I just turned on the mic and freestyled thru the entire song. Made in less than 30mins.
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 3. TODAY TODAY – (prod by @beatsbysarz, co-produced by @Teeymix & @eldeethedon) – Contemporary highlife music, Wedding song…need I say more. I wanted the song to be simple, yet catchy, without being corny like most wedding songs. Fun to write, fun to make. I went out to TYmix to add that extra bass you hear on the hook and the electric guitars towards the end, so I can get a more traditional feel. He killed it, and in one take too!!
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 4. ALWAYS – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – featuring my precious daughter Temi (@temilabelle). I wrote this song in New york while in studio with @realchiddy (Chiddy Bang). I recorded the song in Lagos, brought Temi who was only 1yr old at the time into my home studio, and she killed it!..lol
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 5. RUNDOWN – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – Featuring BankyW, one of my favourite artists to work with. Fun song to record, decided to do something unconventional for both of us….a little dancehall type beat with a contemporary hip-hop bounce from Sarz, the beat genius. Like I said a year ago, the fear of @beatsbysarz is the beginning of wisdom for all Naija producers.
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 6. TRANSFORMERS – (prod by @eldeethedon) – Featuring K9, Sojay. We were hanging out in studio one night and decided to do a song for the ones who love to hate us…this one will get your attention for sure…lol
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 7. CATEGORY – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – This record was a hit before it was made. Again, @beatsbysarz knows how to make a solid club banger without sounding generic.
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 8. WASH WASH – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – If you dont move when this beat comes on, youre officially dead. I had white boys in Boston losing their minds to this. And to think I almost didnt make this record. Simple concept, Trybesmen formula,…13yrs later, still a hit record
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 9. NEVER LET U GO – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – Featuring @WizkidAyo. Ok I call Wizkid at 8pm, send him the record on bbm, he shows up at 10:15am, records his part and leaves by 10:35am. Wiz has definitely clocked his 10,000 hours,…outlier for damn sure. All in all, Fun song to record, playful, PG stuff..lol
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 10. ZOMBIE – (prod by @beatsbysarz) – Rights activist? they say I care too much and cant make music without addressing the issues, this is no different. Started off with K9 freestyling over the beat and came up with a solid hook. Think of this as the consciuos song with a happy vibe to it.
#UNDENIABLE_TrackList 11. WE MADE IT – (prod by @Cobhamsasuquo) – Featuring Sojay. The eLDee story, from 1999 to date. A hiphop record for all my rap fans, laced with vocals that can only be compared to an Usher or Joe feature.
Bez goes international
When Alternative-Soul singer Bez Idakula released his debut single ‘Zuciya daya’ a few years ago, most applauded him but not many thought he would go this far (blame that on Nigerian music and it’s disregard for alternative music).
The very talented singer seems to have proved everyone wrong, releasing his debut album to critical acclaim, performing at premium gigs and earning for himself the record World Premiere of ‘Stupid Song‘ – his hit single featuring another talented act Praiz on BET. What more can you ask for?
But it doesn’t stop there; Bez has spent the last eight months touring and spreading his music to a wider audience, performing in Santa Monica, New York and at the SXSW concert in Houston.
He has also been featured in the international media including Vogue Italia, BBC and Essence.com. Bez’s profile is also in the MTV Iggy Hall of Fame. Can you beat that?
Video:Ice Prince on Tim Westwood Again..
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D'banj to feature Kanye West in Scape Goat remix
Music:Ruudboiz-Banger
Wadup Naija presents Ruudboiz with a song Titled Banger.....Nice Song..Listen ,Download and share your thought!!!!
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Music:Pelli-Dance(freestyle)
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Music:Diye-Shukura
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DJ Tee allegedly stabs upcoming rapper, assaults siblings
Thursday, June 28, 2012 will forever remain a memorable day for the Osungade family as they almost lost three of their siblings in the hands of popular Director and Cinematographer Adetokunbo Odubawo better known as DJ Tee.
The video director has been accused of stabbing a 19-year-old upcoming artiste Osungade Tolani Alvin in the face and assaulting his two siblings.
Wadup Naija sources say Tolani who is better known by his stage name TLI Soji Boi had gone along with his siblings – 22-year-old Dolapo aka Deeking and younger sister, 17 year-old Mobolaji to support a fellow upcoming artiste Malcolm who was shooting his video at the Daily Times factory in Ikeja. We’re told DJ Tee was the D.O.P (Director of Photography) on set.
Eye witnesses say all was going well until DJ Tee asked for those who were to appear in the video shoot (including Tolani and Dolapo) to move on set while the others should move out of shooting range. Dolapo’s girlfriend who wasn’t supposed to appear in the shoot stayed back on set.
Apparently this angered the director as DJ Tee was said to have ‘rudely told her to get out’. ‘He started screaming for her to get out, calling her bitch and stuff’, O’tuga Suzzie, a witness and family friend to the Osungade’s tweeted late last night.
Dolapo, obviously upset, talked back at the director, trying to caution him but DJ Tee allegedly slapped him and asked his boys who were also at the shoot to beat him up.
‘DJ Tee’s boys (about 10 of them) immediately pounced on Dolapo and started beating him up’ one eye witness who asked not to be named, told us.
‘As Mobo screamed and watched helplessly as her elder brother was being beaten up, DJ Tee asked his boys to beat her up too. As Tolani tried to intervene in the whole matter, DJ Tee approached Dolapo to stab him with a bottle he just broke. Tolani intervened and DJ Tee stabbed him in the face. He then had them all thrown out of the factory and continued with the shoot.’
Wadup Naija gathered Tolani is now receiving treatment at the Ikeja Medical Centre.
Even though different eye witnesses claim he did, the director has come out to say nothing of the sort happened. Wadup Naija could not establish contact with DJ Tee for comments as at the time of this report as his phone was switched off but hours after the incident, he took to Twitter to deny the whole news, and explain what happened.
DJ Tee says he didn’t stab anybody;
‘@SOJIBOI_WE bro, I did not stab you…….why are people saying I picked up a bottle & stabbed you with it on your face’, DJ Tee tweeted at Tolani.
And as for the stab in Tolani’s face, he carefully explained;
‘He [Tolani] was an extra on shoot I did today, its long story anyway he smashed a bottle against hard metal above our head. The bottle shattered and cut me and him….broken pieces that was shattered around us. The stabbing thingy was not true…..it was shattered broken pieces anyway. It’s all good’, @DJTee explains as he tweeted at bloggers Twitter handles.
Efa - E2DFA [Prod. D'tunes]
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Thursday 28 June 2012
9ice ft Mayour Darugo - Iya Aiariya [Remix]
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General Pype - Give It To Me
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Prezzo breaks up with Goldie
Since their love affair began officially on Saturday, May 12, 2012, the housemates have managed to remain a ‘couple’ despite their frequent fights.
However, it seems as though Kenyan rapper, Prezzo, is now finally done with his Nigerian ‘lover’, Goldie.
He confided in his friend, Keitta, yesterday, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 about how tired he is with his relationship with the singer.
In his words, ‘I’m not even eating the food she cooks from now on. I can make eggs. I am done. Watch this space. It’s time to bring the old Prezzo back…This chick is a weirdo and I found myself caught up in the mix.’
Even when Biggie played Goldie’s song, Prezzo complained, asking Biggie to change the song and play ‘real music’.
Fans and viewers of the show have since attributed Prezzo’s outburst to the argument he had with Goldie earlier in the week, after which a sad Goldie started speaking to herself.
One thing though: Goldie is yet to be informed of the break-up as Prezzo only confided in Keitta.
TobyOctave-Shey Normal+One Chance ft.M.Lake
Faze joins 2face at Now Muzik
Now Muzik, Nigeria’s leading artiste management outfit has confirmed that former ‘Plantashun Boy’, Faze has joined the league of artistes been managed by the company.
Efe Omorogbe CEO of Now Muzik, said that the 35-year-old singer has been with the label for a while now. ‘He is now officially an artiste managed under theNow Muzik management team’.
‘Faze has been working with us for a month now. The deal was signed late last month. Our outfit will now manage his shows, as well as promote his career. It is a three year contract, and Faze as an artiste is signed under his own label, just like 2Face runs Hypertek.’
Orji ‘Faze’ Chibuzor who is currently working on a new album now joins the likes of Sunny Neji, TWO, 2face Idibia, JMartins and Timi Dakolo who call Now Muzik home.
His fourth album will be released under his own record label, Independent entertainment in July.
Snickxin-Wahala Dey
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Wednesday 27 June 2012
Duncan Mighty feat. Shaggy-Wine it
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Music:2Shotz ft Timaya - Desire
2Shotz teaming up with Egberi Papa 1 - Timaya - Desire.. Uptempo tune, Timaya killed it.. Listen & Download!!!
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‘Stop the lies, I was not slapped’ – Davido
The internet was awash last night, with unconfirmed reports claiming the young millionaire hit-maker was slapped by uniformed men ‘for being rude’.
But the 19-year-old musician quickly took to his Twitter handle, to deny the story, saying it was untrue and baseless.
‘I am safe and at home … Stop the lies! Unlike some of y’all der r some pple out that care …OMO BABA OLOWO :GENESIS OUT SOON’, he tweeted.
Davido who is currently signed on to HKN records will be launching his debut album O.B.O Genesis at the Eko Hotel and Suites on Sunday, July 22, 2012.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Wadup Naija Interview with Zee
Zakeh Maria Ekpong a.k.a Zee whose hit single,"OLOMI" featuring Rayce is presently ruling the airwaves in Nigeria and other part of the world,She Shares with Wadup Naija her Background and passion for Music...........
What are your fulnames?
Zakeh Maria Ekpong
How was growing up like?
Growing up was fun at the begining..I'm the last of 3kids.I have a brother and a sister.My dad was a pilot with the Nigerian airforce and though he was kinda strict,We always had what we wanted as kids.but he died and then things where not so easy anymore with just my mum taking care of us..but we all grew up strong *smiles.
How did you develop your passion for music?
I always loved music growing up....especially rap because I was closer to my brother than I was to my sister so I used to listen to his tapes with him and before u know it I'm spittin bars from the tape *laughs
At what point did you decide to take music as a profession?
Though I had a thing for rap music,I never thought I'd become a rapper,I was actually a backstage dancer with XXL Entertainment, a management company that used to manage vector and pype and then one day,the CEO of the management heard me spitting some eminem bars and then he made me write 16bars with vector supervising.it turned out very good and I was encouraged!.I decided to go into music fully after my 1st stage performance in unilag around 2006.I had people cheering at me.it was very encouraging
Do you have any Album yet?
No,I don't have an album yet, just a few singles out and a couple of collabos here and there
Record Label?
I am not signed to any label yet.Though I have a work relationship with capitalhill music..
How was it working with Rayce on your new single Tagged “OLOMI”
Chai!!..Rayce!!! Hmmm..I had to run a long race to catch him.It took a while to get him to the studio but at the end it was worth the wait. I'm so happy how the track turned out and thanks to the wonderful producer EmmyACE (hugs).
How do you rate your fellow Female artistes”
No female rapper is smiling again ooo..we are taking our spot and we are here to stay (laughs). From blaise to muna ,pryse who is really underated and some other female artistes everyone is doing great trust me
Who is your role Model...And why?
That would be clarence peters.I think he is the best video director in nigeria and yet he doesn't sleep or feel he has done enough.I admire his spirit alot
Apart from music what else do you love to do?
I love to dance (covers face) and on the serious side I do business
What is your typical day like?
I get up and I'm either off to the studio or meeting up with an appointment and when I'm not doin this I'm probablly chilling with friends and having fun..or disturbing my fans on twitter :D
What are your Aspirations?
I aspire to be sucessful as an artiste and also as a Business woman...I will have my own label someday God willing
Do you have any regret in life?
None what so ever
Any last word for your fans?
Prayers and hardwork...that's the key..let No one fool you.
Frank D' Nero - Banger
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Music:Dialect - Ijeoma
Dialect - Ijeoma
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Jim Iyke Wins Alleged N15m Fraud Fight **Case Thrown Out Of Court
The case, according to a representative of Jim Iyke, was thrown out by the court for lack of evidence. His representative told us that Jim Iyke finally won the case some weeks ago.
With this, the case has now been officially closed.
In 2011, Habiba brought the case to the court against Jim Iyke for an alleged 15million naira fraudulent activity by Jim Iyke. Few months ago, Jim Iyke was reported to have begged that the case be settled out of court.
Jim Iyke is also reported to be in Brazil for studies. He was recently listed by the United Nations to help pick six children to receive quality education in the US. He also penned a multi million naira deal in The Gambia some weeks ago.
UNBELIEVABLE! "Married Nollywood Actresses Sleep Around Like Dogs"-Shan George
There is fire on the mountain in Nollywood but nobody seems to be running. Controversial actress, Shan George has dropped a bomb that has brought to the fore what many have been discussing in secret for a long time.
In a recent chat, Olufamous gathered that Shan George stated point blank that majority of her female colleagues, especially the married ones, are nothing but cheap dogs who abandon their husbands' at home to have sex with top politicians and businessmen for financial rewards.
"Most married actresses in the industry sleep around like dogs and nobody is talking about it. These are people who have been lured to bed with whiff of money by top politicians and bizmen. These same people will be claiming to be happily married, feign love to their husbands," she stressed.
Olufamous observed that Shan George's revelation have been attracting reactions from some actresses. Although it is common knowledge in Lagos and Abuja that some actresses are indeed neck-deep in this show of shame, but no one has been bold enough to raise up the issue until now.
However, some actresses have accused Shan of being one of them for her to know that such is going on. They say she's bitter because all her four marriages could not stand the test of time, and more frustrated over the fact that she doesn't have any man to call a husband at moment.
But Shan has insisted that she's saying the truth and also cleared the air about are past marriages, saying "I have never being caught by any of my ex husbands sleeping around. In fact, I am a one-man, one-woman person."
However, some actresses have accused Shan of being one of them for her to know that such is going on. They say she's bitter because all her four marriages could not stand the test of time, and more frustrated over the fact that she doesn't have any man to call a husband at moment.
But Shan has insisted that she's saying the truth and also cleared the air about are past marriages, saying "I have never being caught by any of my ex husbands sleeping around. In fact, I am a one-man, one-woman person."
[Video] Fabulous Lives of D'banj, Asa, P-Square, M.I & Lynxxx
If music is your talent don't sit back and watch, get up and go get it especially if you are in Nigeria.. The Nigerian music industry has helped the likes of Dbanj, Asa, P-Square, M.I Abaga & Lynxx. Watch the Clip below & Share Your Thoughts!!!
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Fela Anikulapo Kuti's residence to be turned to a museum
The house, located at 18, Gbemisola Str., Ikeja, which is also the late Afro beat legend's final resting ground, will be called Kalakuta Museum and is scheduled for opening in October this year during the annual Felabrations event.
The Kalakuta Museum when completed is expected to have an exhibition area, 5-room boutique hotel, a souvenir shop, a bar and stage and a roof-top restaurant among other things.
The home is being turned to a museum according to those behind it to preserve the history of an illustrious son of Africa, promote tourism, acquire, display and preserve artifacts, documents and records of the man referenced as well as those of his contemporaries of African ancestry.
Onyeka Onwenu's only brother dies
There will be a wake keep for him on Thursday Aug. 9 at Hon. D.K Onwenu's compound in Ndianichie Obinetiti, Arondizougu, Imo State, followed by the burial on Friday 10, 12 after a Church service at St. Andrew's. May his soul rest in peace...amen.
Music:Go Go-kOKOMMA
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HEAR ME OUT DA MIXTAPE ALBUM-IEJAY
IEJAY (CHIMA JOHN), AN IMO STATE INDIGENE, A 200LEVEL MICRO-BIOLOGY
STUDENT AT IMO STATE UNIVERSITY. HE IS A RAPPER AND A SINGER WITH
PASSION. HE WAS A CONTESTANT AT PEAK TALENT SHOW SEASON THREE. HE GREW
UP LISTENING TO THE LIKES OF EMINEM, LUDACRIS, BUSTA RHYMES AND
MICHEAL JACKSON. ALL TRACKS PRODUCED BY @benyjo4ashford.
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Monday 25 June 2012
MUSIC: Timaya – Be My Honey
Here is another joint from the latest album of “Egberi Papa 1 of Bayelsa”. This one is titled “Be My Honey” Produced, mixed and mastered by “yung D” from Dem Mama records. The album titled “Upgrade” is now on sell. You guys need to get your own copy of the album. Let’s Upgrade. Enjoy and download.
OFFICIAL VIDEO :Ice Prince- Magician (ReMix) feat. Gyptian
The music video for “Magician” from Africa’s most-requested artist, Ice Prince, featuring Reggae chart topper Gyptian and produced by Jesse Jagz. Directed by Clarence Peters
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RayDee-Whatsap+Lady Gaga
Whatsap
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Lady Gaga
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Chris Okotie announces his marriage is over
Rev Okotie and Stephanie on their wedding day August 2008
The marriage between the popular Reverend Chris Okotie and his wife Stephanie has ‘crashed’ four years after the couple tied the knot.
Sources say the funky pastor dramatically announced the shocking news to his Household of God Church congregation today.
‘Stephanie and I are no longer married. We have separated. You can see she’s not in church today. It’s due to irreconcilable differences and you should please respect our wishes at this time because there is no going back’, the three-time presidential candidate reportedly announced during service.
Okotie will be divorcing for the second time.
Stephanie has now been married three times and has three children from her first two marriages.
‘I want to win a Grammy’ – D’banj
- D’banj
Bouncing towards me on his alligator-skin trainers, Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo opts for a one-armed hip-hop hug when at last we meet. Not only does he look the part – the shoes are by designer Philipp Plein, his T-shirt’s Calvin Klein and around his neck hangs a dazzling chain created by Jacob ‘The Jeweller’ Arabo, purveyor of ‘bling blings’ to the hip-hop elite – but he smells it, too: an almost suffocating cloud of lavender scent hangs in the air.
D’banj, as he shortens his name, is the biggest name in entertainment in Nigeria and has the potential to become the first-ever artist from Africa to compete on equal terms with any acts in the western pop firmament. It’s the brash, moneyed, sexy version of the continent – home to seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world – that he represents. Today he is in the UK promoting his Top 10 hit Oliver Twist, a ribald account of the famous women he fancies, from Nicki Minaj and Rihanna to the Ghanaian actress Nadia Buhari. Recently he heard it being used as the background music to a party in EastEnders – precisely the sort of mainstream attention that he wants to receive.
It quickly becomes apparent that the 32-year-old, acclaimed by his peers back home in Lagos for his relentless drive, is difficult to stop once he’s on a roll. ‘I’m so excited – not just for me, but for the whole of Africa’, he says. ‘Two years ago I said it’s time for me to take my music global because I’ve won all the awards back home.’ With his mentor, the producer Don Jazzy, he created the biggest record label in Nigeria, but ‘now I want to win a Brit award, a Grammy’.
‘Yes, we have MTV, yes, we sell millions of records and have endorsement deals, but we’ve never felt as if we’re part of the same music industry as the rest of the world – the Kanye Wests, the Adeles and Tinie Tempahs,’ he continues. ‘I see what I’m doing now as the bridge that we’ve been looking for from Africa to the mainstream world. I want others to see the potential in my country, other than our oil and natural resources. That’s what’s making me move. I feel like a new artist.’
The first time I laid eyes on D’banj it was in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, in late 2008, when he waltzed away with three accolades including Artist of the Year at the first-ever MTV Africa Awards. Just before he turns up for our encounter in London, the ebullient Bankulli, his manager, shows me footage on YouTube of him on the promo trail in the UK, visiting a school in Plumstead demonstrating how to do the ‘Oliver Twist’ dance to a background of shrill screams from the pupils. It’s not just hard to think of another African artist who’d engender such a reaction at a south London secondary school, it’s tricky to think of that many homegrown pop stars who could incite quite as much hysteria. But over the past three or four years, there’s been a growing appetite for what are styled ‘Afro beats’ among that key pop demographic in this country.
Listen to DJ Abrantee‘s show on Choice FM on Saturday nights or DJ Edu on Radio 1 Extra with his Destination Africa programme on Sundays and you’ll hear the likes of Sarkodie and Efya (from Ghana) or Psquare, Wizkid and – especially – D’banj (all from Nigeria). Rickie Daviesruns a website promoting Afro beats in the UK, and she describes ‘a real shift in perceptions among audiences in the UK. No one’s talking about this as if it’s ‘world music’,’ she says, ‘or alien to the culture here.’ Abrantee told me recently of the deeper impact of this burgeoning scene. ‘When I was growing up in London’, he said, ‘you never let on that your family came from Africa – it was too embarrassing. Everyone pretended they came from the Caribbean. But suddenly black kids from Ghana or Nigeria are saying it’s cool to come from there.’
‘It’s very humbling, my success here,’ D’banj says. ‘Coming from Africa – Nigeria – doing music for a decade there… it’s a different world.’
Ten days earlier, I’d flown to Nigeria to meet D’banj, and ended up on a whistle-stop tour of the Lagos nightlife scene with one of his younger peers. Ice Prince arrives at the Oriental Hotelwith an entourage that includes his own bodyguard, a figure so strapping that he’d be slightly intimidating even without the Soviet assault rifle. As he explains, over the culinary challenge that is a bowl of egusi soup in a fast-food joint in the upmarket district of Lekki, he’s simply there to intimidate the sort of crazy fans that any fledgling pop star will encounter.
‘I can’t normally eat in a place like this’, Ice Prince explains. ‘I just get too much attention’. Instead he has a cook at home, and when he drives around the city in his white Land Rover, his assistant will pull bundles of naira banknotes out of a black bin liner to shower on the crowds who surround him – both a bid to distract them and, as it’s explained to me: ‘It’s expected of you here. If you don’t, people will start saying God thinks badly of you’.
In a nutshell, the 25-year old Panshak Zamani, who grew up in the northern city of Jos, listening to the likes of South African reggae star Lucky Dube and his pop counterpart Brenda Fassie – he now counts Jay-Z as his favourite artist – is living the life that he describes in his hit ‘Superstar’. ‘Better cars, better clothes on me/Better parties, better houses and better girls on me…’ runs the chorus. ‘See I can take you there/Champagne everywhere/That’s the life we live.’
The story of the Nigerian pop scene as it exists today – with its videos showing fast cars and faster women – doesn’t date back much further than a decade and reflects the booming economy in the country. GDP has more than doubled since 2005 and the growing middle class has an appetite for the affluent lifestyle that figures such as Ice Prince or D’banj embody. The latter tells me that ‘it used just to be footballers who got endorsement deals, but now entertainment is attracting a lot of media and investors, too.’
Ice Prince is contemplating offers from a drinks company and a telecoms outfit at the moment. Acts such as his can earn up to £20,000 for a live show – and without that income, rampant piracy would mean the music industry in the country would barely exist. Instead, in the absence of global players such as Sony and Universal, four or five labels – including Ice Prince’s Chocolate City, Storm Records, Kennis Music and EME Music, and D’banj and Don Jazzy’s Mo’Hits – have competed for success.
‘There’s been mad growth in the music industry here,’ Ice Prince says, while acknowledging the problems with publishing and the collection of royalties. Nonetheless: ‘If you go to a club or a party in Lagos, 80% of the music that you’ll hear is Nigerian, which never used to be the case.’
Factor in the advent of MTV and other cable channels across Africa, – including Channel O, BET (Black Entertainment Television) and the French network Trace – plus the new power of Twitter and social media, and little wonder that when an artist such as Ice Prince plays a show in Malawi, he’s greeted by crowds numbering in their thousands. He shows me footage of a recent gig on his Mac PowerBook. ‘This is new. They might not understand our patois, but the fans there know us from TV, and we’re famous right across the continent.’
Ice Prince has a gig to play in Abuja this evening, so he leaves me in the care of the most celebrated hip-hop star in the country, M.I, meaning Mr Incredible (or Jude Abaga, as he was christened). His posse – that’s now me, incongruously; the producer Kid Konnect and another rapper, the brilliant Loose Kaynon – end up swigging Hennessy at a party called SLU…shh in a mansion in Lekki where other acts including Davido and Tiwa Savage freestyle on the mic by the swimming pool. Come 3am the next day, we’re in Number 10, the nightclub on Victoria Island owned by Jay-Jay Okocha – the most famous Nigerian footballer of all time (later MI even introduces this drunken foreigner to him).
The following afternoon there’s a gig at the Teslim Balogun stadium: Coca-Colais sponsoring a youth football tournament and paying for the accompanying entertainment. This means appearances between games from Davido, Brymo and then M.I himself. He sprints around the pitch, mic in hands, rapping along to the bellowing PA system, stopping only to goad members of the crowd who aren’t fellow Arsenal fans, before sprinting to his waiting car and a hairy ride out of the stadium before the vehicle is mobbed.
From there I head to the airport, regretting only that the figure I’d travelled to Lagos to see never actually materialised: D’banj himself. One of his representatives did arrive at the hotel with a bottle of Moët & Chandonand a Koko mobile – from his own branded mobile-phone line, launched last year – as gifts for me. But with it came the message that he’d preferred instead to go to the Cannes film festival with Kanye West – in order to help promote Kanye’s 30-minute movie Cruel Summer, shot in Qatar and featuring several artists signed to his G.O.O.D Music label, among whom D’banj can now count himself.
Born in Zaria in northern Nigeria to a military officer and a businesswoman, D’banj grew up just north of Lagos, becoming interested in music following the death of his 17-year-old brother Femi in an air crash in 1994. ‘I arranged all his possessions on his bed after they were brought home and just picked up his harmonica. I’d play it to remember him.’ Later, at university, he realised what his new skills with the instrument could bring him. ‘I’d go to the female hostel after lectures, and even if there was no electricity I could play there.’ He remembers learning Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ after Titanic came out – ‘and that got me a lot of girls!’
Plans to continue his studies as a mechanical engineer in London were derailed when he arrived in the UK in 2001 and met Don Jazzy. The 18-year-old – born Michael Collins Ajereh – had also come from Lagos and was trying to make it as a songwriter and producer, working with acts such as Big Brovaz (career highlight: the song they contributed to the soundtrack of Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed). D’banj started hanging around the studio, making ends meet with work as a security guard. ‘It was OK, because I did nights,’ he says, ‘so I could listen to music on my headphones.’
Don Jazzy told D’banj he thought he was a star in the making and, sensing that the music scene in Nigeria was ‘blossoming’, the pair returned to Lagos in 2004. That same year came the single ‘Tongolo’, the video paid for by D’banj’s mum – ‘Thank you, Mummy!’ – who’d hitherto been suspicious of his new-found calling, and then his first album, his first endorsement (with an energy drink called Power Fist) and ‘the rest is history’.
In fact, as Don Jazzy tells it, there was a definite plan with each landmark single. He’d clocked the success of Psquare across Africa, so with the next D’banj record, ‘Fall in Love’, he emulated their sound. With ‘Mr Endowed’, he went for ‘fist-pumping dance music’ – a risk at home in Nigeria, but it paid off in spades, and through the help of a mutual friend (jeweller Chris Aire), Snoop Dogg was brought in on a remix of the track. The impossibly infectious ‘Oliver Twist’ was a calculated attempt to crack the market in the UK. ‘I thought we could do with a sort of funky house sound. I thought:
‘It’s not like the music is that different from the music we listen to here.’‘
Listen to ‘Oliver Twist’, or Ice Prince’s ‘Superstar’, or P-Square’s ‘Chop My Money’ – which I heard blaring on Beat FMall weekend in Lagos, alongside the occasional likes of Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ – and the production isn’t so dissimilar from any western pop hit. But as Ice Prince told me, there’s definitely an indigenous feel, too: ‘There’s a lot of American and UK influence, but the present Nigerian sound is really influenced by highlife and juju music. We made it a bit funky, a bit more modern.’
Prior to the likes of 2face Idibia and the brothers in Psquare and D’banj, the biggest name in Nigerian music remained the late Fela Kuti, and Don Jazzy cites the influence of his ‘Afro beat’ sound, too. It’s a source of some irritation that what he calls his ‘Afro pop’ is termed ‘Afro beats’ in the UK, when ‘what we do now sounds totally different’.
With D’banj, Jazzy built Mo’Hits records, also signing the likes of Wande Coal. But earlier this year, the pair split, following D’banj’s decision to sign to Kanye West’s label and relocate on a more or less permanent basis to the UK and US.
In D’banj’s telling of it, he and his entourage were in the first-class lounge at Dubai airport in November 2010 after playing a gig when a stewardess approached with a name card that said ‘Mr Kanye West’. ‘I was looking fly – if you know anything about D’banj, you know I’m always looking on point. I say: ‘Dress how yon: ‘That means Kanye West is coming, let’s get rolling… Eyes open!’ Then we saw him, checking in, wearing a hoodie. I said: ‘If I get five minutes, I will take it. I’m an African man! I will not waste it!’ And he came and five minutes became 30 minutes and he held my plane for me, because I would have missed it. In fact the first thing he said was: ‘I like your dress sense…’‘
Mr Endowed.
The story of D’banj’s split with Don Jazzy has dominated the Nigerian entertainment press all year. The week after I leave Lagos there are even (false) rumours that D’banj has been shot by three gunmen near Kanye’s Atlanta residence, then rushed to the city’s St Joseph’s hospital and is dying from his wounds. There doesn’t seem to be much substance to the idea of hostilities, although Don Jazzy did cut a slightly forlorn figure when I met him in his half-built mansion in a gated compound on the outskirts of Lekki. ‘Every day I’d wake up, I’d be scared to look at the newspaper or go to the internet to see what people are saying now,’ he said. ‘It’s been blown out of all proportion.’
While he also has a deal with GOOD Music as a producer, Jazzy intends to concentrate on his new venture, MAVIN records, and those acts still signed to him, including Dr SID, Tiwa Savage and Wande Coal. He says now of D’banj: ‘he’s a very ambitious person and he works hard: I give it to him. I’m glad that we’ve been able to get to the point where he can go to the UK and the US and stand as a man. I don’t need to be carrying him – there’s other people who need help here now.’
When D’banj and I do meet, he’s mollifying. ‘It’s like we were married – a very successful marriage,’ he says, ‘and we just had a divorce.’ There are also those voices, he knows, who think that now he’s tasted success in the UK, he’ll turn his back on Nigeria, but he’s adamant. ‘I can’t wait for the world to see what we have in Africa. I tell Kanye and everyone, I’ve got rappers back home who can really rap. MI is going to murder everybody! I had a vision that I want to be global,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want to change my Nigerian identity, I don’t want to change my style.’
In person, he radiates such easy-going star quality that it’s impossible to begrudge him anything, or to think that he won’t help pave the way for others. (In fact, just days after we speak, Ice Prince joins him on the bill for the BBC’s Hackney Weekend festival).
The final question I put to him – and it’s the sort of question that a lot of his peers in the UK and US would shirk – is whether his Afro beats hold a mirror up to society in the same way that Fela Kuti’s did. D’banj argues that today’s stars are simply reaping the rewards of battles Fela won, that ‘things are better – there’s not just freedom of speech. For instance, we’ve got social media.’
At the last Nigerian elections, D’banj was courted by presidential candidate Goodluck Jonathan and filmed a video in support that was subsequently credited with ensuring his success. Any flak that the singer attracted as a result deters him little – even if the raging fuel-subsidy issues in the country have overtaken the promise in his clip on YouTube of ‘no shortage of fuel and kerosene’. Perhaps it’s a reminder that on any road to progress there are always setbacks.
‘We’re enjoying democracy now,’ D’banj insists, ‘and the economy is on the up and up. There’s also been so much negative coverage of Nigeria,’ he continues, ‘but I like to think that the message I preach through leading the lifestyle that I do is: anyone can make it.’
Culled from The Guardian UK
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