D`banj & Don
Jazzy : Who Is Winning?
Don Jazzy
The acclaimed producer
was
the first to hit the ground
running, literally.
Immediately after Mo’Hits
was pronounced dead, Don Jazzy unveiled
his new record
label, Mavin Records, with a
formidable line up
of artistes
including Dr Sid, Wande Coal,
D’Prince and
surprisingly, Tiwa
Savage.
Subsequently, he released the
Mavin Records’
collaborative album, Solar
Plexus. If he thought
the album would
typically send music fans
dancing a storm, Don
Jazzy must be rethinking its timing,
which has been panned and
pilloried by critics as a
hurriedly put together job. Not
even
Wande Coal and Tiwa
Savage’s combined talents could rejuvenate the
album’s
stillbirth. In view of the lukewarm
reception Solar
Plexus
received, the producer has
been reaching out to fans by,
on one occasion, doling out
money on twitter and visiting media
houses in a sustained
publicity drive . For a producer who has built
a
lot of myth and reverence
around his persona by evading
the media, his visits to media
houses and clamour for
interviews
these days smack of desperation.
In the intervening period, he
has
implied that his deal with Kanye
West’s GOOD Music might no
longer work out because he can
not give his 100 per cent to his
contract. “Kanye has over 100 per cent
lined up at his beck and call
and it is not like I am priority.
So, I will be spending a lot
of
money staying in the United
States when I can return home
and be making money as well
as grooming more artistes.
And it’s
very easy these days,
I can work here and once I’m
done, and
feel it’s something
that would suit Kanye West, I’ll just email it
to them.”
Things might be a bit bumpy
now, but without
undermining
Don Jazzy’s genius and mastery
of street hop, there
is no doubt
that he will still have his time in
the sun. Whether
he would still be as revered and financially
buoyant is what is now
subject
to conjectures. But, it is just a
matter of time.
D’banj One of the causes of the duo’s
split in D’banj’s reckoning
was
that his partner edged when
there was an opening for them
to break into the international
market. Now that the encumbrance of
the other guy
has been cleared, the
Kokomaster is solely
committed
to realising his dreams of going
international alone.
And he has
rapper, Ikechukwu, who has subjugated his own career to
help push D’banj’s, seemingly;
bulky hype man, Special ED and
his younger brother, Kay Switch,
to open up the frontiers of his
music. With a home in Atlanta and London, D’banj now shuttles
between Nigeria and these cities
as he hopes to achieve what no
Nigerian-bred artiste has –
fostering a flourishing
international career. He has been lucky. His single,
Oliver twist,
has been such a
cross-continental hit that its
acceptance must
have
humbled the successful
entertainer. As an artiste on Kanye
West’s Good Music
label, he has also been quite
visible in the
international
showbiz circuit and has
covered a couple of
international magazines. However, history is not so much
in D’banj’s
favour as even more
talented acts like Majek Fashek
(well, he
did himself in with
drugs), Ras Kimono and Mike
Okri, who all
scampered abroad at the height of their fame, are
back home now with
no
breakthrough abroad and a loss
of homeground. But the
circumstances are
indeed different because
D’banj has a deep
pocket and
he is still very much loved at
home. He has performed
at
several concerts and shows where Don Jazzy’s artistes
didn’t
have a look-in; and
even where they did, they
were subsumed
under D’banj’s
halo. In order not to lose his fan
base at home
perhaps, and
with Don Jazzy gone, he
recently signed producer,
Jay
Sleek, who has worked with
Tuface Idibia, Sound Sultan,
Wizkid and Timaya among
other artistes, to his DB
Records as
in-house producer. In just over five years, Jay Sleek
has gained
considerable
popularity for producing great
music for these
artistes and
many more. “This has been a
long time coming so, we
are really happy to see Jay Sleek join
the D’banj family. It’s
exciting to
be working with one of the best
in the game. Jay
Sleek is a
fantastic producer,
hardworking, humble and immensely
creative. I’m so
certain that he will carve a niche
for himself
here and inspire us to
even greater music,” D’banj says
in a
statement during the week. This has resulted in the
release of the
single, O yato
(The difference is clear).
Unlike his last
single, Oliver
Twist, O yato got mixed
reviews. That the song
trended worldwide on twitter
on the day of release was a
pointer
to people’s views
about it. Many fans urged him
to return to
Don Jazzy,
lampooning what they perceived as the wateriness of
the lyrics. In the midst of the conflicting
and critical reviews of O
yato,
D’banj sneaked in with a
sterling feature on the remix
of Naeto C’s Tony Montana.
And that swayed arguments again in his
favour once again.
With Let’s Get the Party
Started, a Tuface
Idibia song,
featuring him, MI, Wizkid and
Tiwa Savage, the
entertainer
rose to the challenge. He is not leaving his flanks open
for
potshots. But the ultimate
barometer to gauge his post-
Don Jazzy era would be the
release of his album which
had been
in the works before the split. If it tanked, woe
betide his career;
but if it
became a chartbuster, it would
be a pointer to the
fact that he
knows what he is doing after
all. As he trudges on,
D’banj is
especially trying to launch
KaySwitch’s career. The
latter
released a single, Sister Caro
featuring D’banj recently.
It is not
doing badly. It is indeed a good start for the Covenant
University dropout who never
had a single to his name
during
his years in Mo’Hits.
