AWARD-WINNING SINGER, OLU MAINTAIN’S R&B SINGLE, NAWTI, RELEASED
LAST YEAR ENJOYED IMPRESSIVE REVIEWS FROM PUNDITS AT HOME AND ABROAD AND
WON A COUPLE OF AWARDS TOO. HIS NEW SINGLE, HYPNOTIZE ME FEATURING
AMERICAN RAPPER, 50 CENT AND VELVET VOICED SONGBIRD, OLIVIA WAS RELEASED
YESTERDAY AND HE HOPES TO MAKE A BIG IMPACT IN THE INDUSTRY WITH THIS
MUSICAL MARRIAGE. HE SPEAKS TO LANRE ODUKOYA ON HOW HE HAS FARED IN THE
RECENT PAST, NEW PLANS AND SUNDRY ISSUES
WINNING NMVA AWARD…
It just makes me feel that hard work has indeed paid off, having been
quiet for about three years and nominations popping out everywhere to
the extent that Nawti won the Best Video of NEA Awards in New York.
Nawti was also nominated as the Best R&B Song at the Hip Hop World
Awards and I learnt that the only reason it wasn’t nominated as the Best
Video at the Hip Hop World Awards was that no video directed by a
foreigner is ever nominated. I don’t know why. They should have asked
because the director of Nawti video is Kehinde Nayomi Smith and she’s a
Nigerian. She was in Nigeria recently for the first time when I won the
NMVA Award. But going forward, 2012 has been a very eventful year
because my target was to release the album for 2012. With success of
Nawti and the dynamism which the music industry was taking, I slowed
down on the songs I had recorded initially because I have not been
satisfied that I have put in my best into the ‘CHOOSEN ONE’ album. So, I
went back to the studio and stared recording again. But now, I can
confidently say that the album is coming out in the first quarter of
this year and the second track on the album titled ‘Hypnotize Me’
features two international artistes.
ABOUT THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM…
The reason it’s ‘CHOOSEN ONE’ with double ‘o’ is that it’s a ten track
album and each of the letters that come together to form the acronym
represents each track on the album. There’s a remix of Nawti in the
works and I found a new PR team in America called KNX based in Los
Angeles and they’re trying to stock my songs and see the possibility of
it pre-listed on mainstream radio and the response has been positive.
They’re the ones making collaborations with the international acts that
I’ve been working with. For me, doing collaboration with any
international artiste should not just be by the star power of the
artiste; it should be by merit that this artiste can genuinely do
justice to the song in question. So, if I was asked who I would love to
do collaboration with; a female singer that is equally as pretty and
has a beautiful voice, my choice would be Olivia because I’ve always
been her fan. So, when we met and I played her the song, she liked it
and said she was willing to do it. Then we met in New York at the
Platinum Studio owned by Jerry Wonder, one of the most sought after
producers in the world. Coincidentally, Olivia is Jerry Wonder’s new
artiste as well. 50 Cent has his lines on this track too. And there was
this chemistry upon our meeting and we did the song with a beautiful
experience and the video too is on the way. Everything is pretty much
falling into place and I’m more than happy that I’ve waited this long.
In terms of quality, you should never compromise because you have the
obligation to always beat your best. So far, my name has evolved from
Mr. Yahooze to Mr. Nawti. So, I look at Nawti as the best effort that
I’ve put out there and Hypnotize Me has to come to beat what Nawti has
done.
ASSESSMENT OF THE INDUSTRY IN 2012…
In all fairness, the industry has evolved bigger and more eventful in
2012. The Nigerian music industry is breaking more frontiers, Afro Beat
is now a genre that’s now officially accepted in the UK and the larger
parts of Europe and we have international record labels signing Nigerian
artistes. We have more collaboration with international artistes as
well. 2012 was big and 2013 is going to be bigger. This is encouraging
from what the industry used to be some ten years ago. This is just a
motivation to keep striving harder yearning for music that has
substance. Nigerian music industry has gained a lot although; in its
growth, it still lacks some level of development in terms of structure.
Recently, I learnt that COSON has been able to get some level of
publishing for some Nigerian artistes who have had songs over time. I’ve
not got anything from COSON but that is a welcome development from
COSON because Nigeria is the only developing country in the world where
artistes don’t get publishing for airplay. Go to the UK and the US, one
of the major income generating avenues for artistes is shows/concerts
but everywhere else in the world publishing plays a larger part in
financial rewards that an artiste gets. So for COSON to have intervened
to forcefully demand for what is the right of Nigerian artistes, I think
it’s a positive development. It’s like a marriage. A typical young man
is not ready for marriage but when you find yourself in a situation
where it’s inevitable to be in that circumstance, you deal with it. You
manage it and you excel in it. So, if the Nigerian media hides behind
the excuse that it’s not ready yet, nothing will move forward. Saying
you’re not developed enough to impact in policies that the Western world
has been doing for decades, you’re basically running from
responsibilities. It’s like a loser’s statement; that it’s not going to
be easy is not an excuse for it not to start. COSON has started. If
everyone has that mentality that we want to follow the structure that we
look up to in the west, then it can in no way be a step in the wrong
direction.
2013 OF MY DREAM…
2012 for me was a production phase. It was a phase where Olu Maintain
came out of a three year hiatus and when he came out, he made a
statement. So, the Olu Maintain brand is now known as one that doesn’t
make a statement every time, but when it does, he gets it right. Coming
up from a split in a group called Maintain, it made a global statement
with Yahooze. And after three years hiatus, he made a statement again
with Nawti, both the video and audio and won awards. So, in 2013, you
can only expect that the production phase is over and it’s now an
exhibition phase. Tours, endorsements, concerts are in the offing for
the brand Olu Maintain in 2013.
COLLABORATION WITH NIGERIANS…
There’s a track in my album titled ‘Naija A-list’ and it’s a beat
produced by a young producer, Yung D. He has produced quite a number of
successful songs in 2012 and one of them is Timaya’s ‘Bum Bum’. This is
the part I want to have collaboration with five best Nigerian rappers,
so I called it ‘Naija A-list’. I have my choices but I’m not going to
subject the feature on the song to my decision making alone. I want to
let my fans decide who the best five are. It will be an online campaign
and people are going to vote for their five best Naija rappers which
will be like a survey among industry heads and fans out there.
MY PRODUCTION TEAM…
Hypnotize Me featuring Olivia was produced by the same guy who produced
Nawti - Tayo Adeyemi. The Dancia, an upbeat track was produced by a
young man called DJ Firm and I also worked with Yung D to produce about
two songs in the album.
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