Nigerian Hip Hop artiste, Banji Oladapo, popularly known as Dbanj on Wednesday took a swipe at music record label owners in Nigeria.
Also known as the Kokomaster, Dbanj who was one of the panelist discussing the topic, ‘Changing The Game: Artistes As Leaders’ at the 2018 Social Media Week Lagos, said music record label owners in Nigeria know nothing about the music business.
He said further that one of the challenges confronting the growth of Nigerian Music Industry is that Nigerian artistes lack capacity building.
“Most of the new generation record labels are founded by Yahoo boys. You must understand first, why are you coming into music.
“Nigerian artistes need a lot of capacity building. It is only in Nigeria that the owner of a record label doesn’t know anything about music.”
The Oliver Twist crooner also explained how he ventured into music, attributing it to the fear of poverty.
Despite hitting some people in the music industry hard, Dbanj encouraged young and upcoming artistes about building their brand.
According to him, being a brand is not a day’s job it is a daily and deliberate effort that involves evolving.
“Just like any product, you must always evolve. The fear of being poor made me think outside the box. This is one of the factors that drove me into music,” he said.
Dbanj speaking during the SMW
Also known as Eja Nla (Big Fish) by his fans, Dbanj is ready to swim in the digital space where he believes the future lies.
He called on business owners and investors to promote Nigerian music through collaborations and partnership.
Dbanj rose to prominence on the imprint of Mo’Hits record label which started in 2004, founded by Don Jazzy.
The label would grow to have a crew comprising of, in addition to Don Jazzy and D’Banj, Wande Coal, Dr. Sid, K-Switch, Ikechukwu and D’Prince.
It, however, collapsed to the annoyance of fans when Dbanj and Don Jazzy painfully split in 2012 over internal disagreements.
Dbanj later started his own record label, DB records.