Award-winning singer, Olu Maintain’s
R&B single ‘Nawti’, released last year, enjoyed impressive reviews from
pundits at home and abroad, winning a couple of awards. His new single,
‘Hypnotize Me’ featuring American rapper 50 Cent and velvet-voiced songbird
Olivia, was released yesterday.
The singer
hopes to make a big impact in the industry with this musical ‘marriage’. He
speaks on how he has fared in the recent past, his new plans and sundry issues.
On 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."
On 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."
Assesment 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."
Culled from Punch
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