The list of contemporary Nigerian artistes will be incomplete without a mention of the Afro-pop artiste, David Adedeji Adeleke, better known as Davido on the top 10.
The Omo Baba Olowo in a recent chat revealed how his attraction to the music industry started. “It started when I got back home from the University of Alabama during the Christmas holiday. I saw how big the entertainment and music scene was in Nigeria and I fell in love with music so quick and knew I had so much to contribute and offer,” he said.
“However, my parents disapproved at first, but I worked hard and my career was doing well. It’s a journey you go through and I feel like if I was supported from the get-go, I wouldn’t have worked as hard as I did. I naturally like making music and it’s not about who’s big and who’s not, it’s more about making the craft. My family is now my biggest supporter in life” Davido enthused.
The DMW crew leader further revealed that he initially felt restricted when he signed with Sony Music Entertainment.
“It felt like I was directed towards making safe music. It got to a point where I was losing touch with myself and I needed to snap out of it, so I decided to go back to Nigeria and reconnect with my original producers. Once I got back, everything went back to normal and I was true to myself,” he stated.
Expressing how he feels about his music going into the mainstream the Assurance singer said: “My songs such as Fall and If blew up in America a year or two after being released and they were already hit songs in some countries in Europe and all of Africa. It caught fire naturally and it was a blessing that was not expected at the time because we didn’t over-promote it,” Davido explained.
Recall that the Ekuro singer and songwriter, started his career in the industry as an audio engineer that recorded vocals for people before getting fully into music has won series of music awards including ‘Hottest Single of the Year’ for his song Dami Duro at the Nigerian Entertainment Awards (2012), Best International Act at the BET Awards (2014), and Artiste of the Year at The Headies (2018), among others.
