Nigerian music executive, Michael Collins Ajereh, also known as Don Jazzy, has said Afrobeats artists and producers made better music when artists and producers used to live together in record labels’ houses with studios and other facilities.
Speaking in a recent episode of the Crea8torium podcast, Don Jazzy recounted how a random incident involving D’Prince at a house where they were living together in Mo’Hits mansion inspired D’Banj’s ‘Olorun Maje.’
“I have a theory that says that most of the great music that we made in Afrobeats was when all of us were living together. For instance, D’Banj’s ‘Olorun Maje,’ the idea was from D’Prince and Sunday Are, who was our manager then.
“Sunday Are was complaining that D’Prince didn’t want to go to radio interviews. He came to report to me but I didn’t even listen because I was working in the studio. So, I told him to go and report to D’Banj because he is like a military man. After he reported, D’Banj started shouting at D’Prince. Then D’Prince now came back into the studio where I was with Sunday Are and pretended like he was dusting some equipment and then began to sing, ‘Some people they want make I cry, some people they want make I die, why? Olorun Maje oooo.’
“The lyrics just fell precisely to the beat I was making at that time. I told him to pause that I like it. That was how the song was born. Also the song ‘You bad, you want it’ was from Dr Sid, who randomly walked into the studio and started rhyming to a beat I was making,” he recalled.
Don Jazzy noted that music creation nowadays is different from the time him and his contemporaries held sway.
He, however, said he hasn’t changed his pattern, stressing that he goes into the studio with the intention of creating a beat for a particular artist.
He advised the new generation of creatives to associate more to build cohesion between their crafts.
