Entertainment – Olu Maintain drops a new track featuring 50cent nd Olivia titled hypnotize me

Olu Maintain: My Collabo With 50 Cent
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Nigeria’s very own 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.”

Posted by Joseph Etugbo