4 months ago
39
With almost 30 years’ experience in the music industry, Seyi Allen says the cost of promoting music on radio and TV is becoming high because of monetary demands from OAPs and DJs’. ORJI ONYEKWERE took him up on this and more in this exclusive interview.
You are a copyright specialist, why the interest in copyright?
It’s been like that from the beginning when music became a part of me, when I became a song writer and singer. Those days when we started, we were concerned about protecting our materials. It’s just something you worry about when you start churning out songs, you start thinking whether somebody is going to steal your song or somebody is going to use your write up.
We have copyright laws but some people don’t take advantage of it. Why?
Yes. Some artistes don’t even care. Some artistes are just so eager to jump on stage and perform, that you are trying to protect their interest, they don’t care. People like us have to go and get a Harvard certificate on Intellectual Property. I am being trained by one the best professors’ in copyright, Professor William Fischer.
Some of them that are still young and rookies, when you try to stop them from signing certain contracts or educate them about it, they just look at you like one of those trying to block their career and that’s a Nigerian mentality. If you’re trying to tell them, don’t go there, this is best for you; they just feel like you’re the person that wants to kill their career.
People only know you as an artist manager, music promoter but they don’t know you sing and you have an album
Yes, I have an album and I released it for posterity sake, so that the younger ones will know where we are coming from. That we all started as song writers, singers and instrumentalists because most of these kids think it’s all about them and they feel on top, but they don’t know that we started somewhere.
You have been into music promotion for more than three decades
Let me correct you. I have been into music for about three decades but I have been a promoter for about two decades.
What’s the problem with music promotion here in the area of contract and documentation?
Every country has its originality and the way it promotes songs. The fact is that Nigerians didn’t start music as music promoters. Late MKO Abiola once said something about himself years ago. He said, when he was still young because he liked music a lot, he used to go and play at events and they usually give him ‘agidi’ and ‘moi moi’ as compensation and that is what he will share with his team.
The African culture especially the Nigerian culture will always influence some of the things we believe in. From the beginning, we never believed in contract in this country because everybody has its culture and way of doing things.
In Europe, when they saw that arguments and quarrels were coming in, they took contract signing seriously. That’s why things are done accordingly because there, there’s no bribe or ‘abeg help me’.
Things are done accordingly, it’s either you can do it or not. It’s either you can perform or you cannot. Again the way things are over there, it’s hourly. In Nigeria, it’s per day, you can spend the whole day doing anything you like, but here in Europe, they pay you per hour. You do the hours and they pay you, you go
What’s the problem with our music? No genre lasts for long. Look at hip hop, it only lasted for a while but rappers are still relevant are in the USA and still making money. What’s the problem?
Nigerian has never had its own original music, we always adopt other people’s music and make it ours. Even when you look at the origin of highlife, it didn’t come from Nigeria but Ghana until Fela powered Afrobeat. Even Afrobeat is like half way Nigeria and half way Ghana but we have now made Afrobeat our own.
Genres like highlife, funk, afrobeat, reggae and pop were never our music. I remember when people started to change the narrative, rappers and hip hop artistes were always coming to me, then I was managing Sunny Nneji and Blackky (Edward Inyang).
They will always come and say ‘Oga, help us’ and I will tell them you are always rapping in English language.
Yes, we speak the language but when you begin to rap, it becomes more difficult. Some people don’t even understand the English enough that you decided to rap in.
So we started bending and changing it and they named it Afro hip hop. So, we started encouraging some people to infuse their traditional language in their songs. When we decided to change the narrative, we involved people like Lord of Ajasa, Sound Sultan and others.
Secondly, these days they don’t do evergreen songs. Most of their songs are what you call ‘Sayo’songs. ‘Sayo’ songs are just for the club, it’s just for people to dance to and they don’t dance to the same beat forever. Most of them don’t plan well and look at the long run.
In Nigeria, in most cases; the artiste wants to be the song writer, singer, producer, manager and his own promoter. That’s too much work for one person there’s no division of labour. If you look at rappers generally, both locally and internationally, they don’t last as much as singer’s and one of the reasons is that singer’s write short songs and it’s a hit. For rappers, their lyrics contain a lot of words and after a while, they run out of words to speak.
Comparing Nigeria to abroad, Nigerian artistes want to take control of his works and after a while it becomes a one man thing and he moves on. Like I said earlier, most people don’t write evergreen songs again and sometimes a song can make you last longer.
What does it take to start a label and why would an artiste break off and want to start his/her own label?
In the current dispensation compared to back in the days, it’s now easy to own a label. It’s easier now for an artiste to own a label because we’re in the digital space. Years ago, it used to be harder because for you to be signed on by a label, you have to have 14 or 15 songs ready that’s side A and B ready. You will have a master tape which you would have spent hours and days to produce.
But now things are easier, it’s easier to produce a song because once you have a laptop, you can start creating beats. You don’t need anybody to create a session for you.
The only thing that is more expensive these days is promotion. Promotion is more expensive than it was in those days. Those days it used to be cheaper because you had only two radio stations and probably two TV stations: NTA Channel 10 and NTA Channel 5, Lagos and once you cover those two, you are a star. You had FRCN 1 and FRCN 2, that’s why it was easy for people like Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade to explode because these stations covered half of Nigeria.
But as time went on we started having private radio and TV stations and doing promotion became more expensive because you have more places to cover and then you have to do ‘”Payeola”. Currently we have about 15 radio stations and maybe about 10 TV stations in Lagos alone. You see how hard it has become for a label to cover all these stations because you have to do Payeola and it has to go round.
What’s “Payeola”?
It’s more like a fanciful name for bribe. We are going to fight for this, it has to stop in Nigeria because a lot of TV and radio stations are used to this ‘payeola’ that you don’t need to have talent before you are heard. They put the talented ones who don’t have money aside and then they push the non-talented and rich ones that have plenty money. Nigeria has plenty talents, singers and very good song writers that have not been heard that is because if you don’t have your ‘payeola’ nobody listens to you.
Who was the biggest artiste you managed and which show did you promote that gave you that satisfaction?
It was Blackky, though I was not his first manager. I joined him as an instrumentalist and started working with his manager as an assistant and trained with that and eventually rose up the ladder. I was responsible for the return of ‘The Black Man’ album and I was also responsible for promoting and bringing him back to reckoning.
I also had Sunny Nneji who later became as big as Blackky, I had my wife, Azeezat and along the line I worked with several artistes like Plantashun Boyz briefly when they were coming up because they really depended on me at that time and were always around me and so many other artistes
But Blackky never lasted on the spotlight?
Blackky lasted for long because he was like the Tuface of that time. I was with Blackky for over 12 years. I joined Blackky in 1990, after I came back from a training in sound engineering in Holland. I joined him in December 1990 and in 1991, he started playing at events. I joined him as an instrumentalist and he lasted till 2000, he was still massive.
He was the first artiste I really toured with when I joined him as an instrumentalist because we were touring almost every state, and campuses across the country. That was when we still had about 21 states across the federation. We toured until more states were created, he was one of the artistes I really toured with.
Then Sunny Nneji. I also worked briefly with Weird MC and Alariwo of Africa, Zaaki Azzay and so many more. Before we decided to change the narrative and support hip hop people that were attaching Afro centric vibes into their music and calling it hip hop
One of the biggest shows I did and promoted for myself is the Afro Hiphop Awards. That was the first Afro Hiphop Award in Nigeria, which we did at African Shrine and at that time; we didn’t know where it was going. We just did the event and we went to rest not knowing we have planted a big seed. We used to say that 10 to 20 years from then, we will start winning international awards. And I was not surprised when they started winning awards recently.
Seyi Allen Music Machine seems to be focusing more on discovering new artistes, is that the new focus for you?
I will not say it’s new because what I have always been known from time; it’s going into the ghetto to discover young and talented artists, supporting and giving them opportunities I won an award, AMEN award years ago for being the best artiste marketer. It was because they recognised my skills in discovering artistes.
I am still doing the same thing, instead of sticking to the big artistes all my life, of course, you cannot work with an artiste forever, I always try to help the young ones grow. I am not doing it because I want to be with them forever but to help them facilitate their journey to greatness. There is an opportunity for even the unborn artiste. I am waiting for them to come out.
READ ALSO: US Justice Department recognizes BRGIE as an entity…
What’s your projection and focus for Seyi Allen Music Machine ?
Seyi Allen Music Machine is multi-faceted, it’s not just label and promotion. I am coming back to Nigeria to set up a large studios and performance centre. Before I left Nigeria, I was actually into sales of musical equipment and supply of top rated musical equipment to studio owners. That’s why it’s called Seyi Allen Music Machine. It’s not just one item. It’s multi faceted: management, promotion, marketing, studio, performance equipment etc.
What’s happening to one of your newest artiste, Yellow Girl?
Yellow Girl is doing fine. She was formally known as Jane Krest. She has been in the industry for about 15 years struggling and was signed to one or two labels in the past, but they never took her seriously, maybe because she’s living with albinism.
But I met her two years ago and this girl is very talented and brave. I put her in one or two concerts to perform, I think it was Naija Fm that was doing something and I put her there and her performance was excellent and everybody was like where did this girl come from? Meanwhile she has been there all the while, she just wasn’t given the right exposure.
I started working with her about two years ago and late last year, we started thinking of change of name because Jane Krest was not catching fire at all. I was inspired to suggest, Yellow Girl to her and that was it. Yellow Girl caught up very fast and people liked it. It was like a rebirth and we are still working on the video and other new songs we want to put out now.
What we did first was to launch the name and now we are going to rebrand her fully and remake her old songs. Just the next two or three months, she will be playing in some big concerts in Nigeria and abroad. You will hear more of her soon.
QUOTE:
It’s more like a fanciful name for bribe. We are going to fight for this, it has to stop in Nigeria because a lot of TV and radio stations are used to this ‘payeola’ that you don’t need to have talent before you are heard.
English (US) ·