In an exclusive interview with Vibe.ng magazine Nigerian Pop Singer Timaya talks his early days and his big projects as he makes the new cover with rising star King Perry.
If you ever wondered whether Timaya truly sold plantain as claimed in his 2009 smash single, the answer is a big fat YES!
His Mondays to Fridays were for school but his weekends were for hawking trays of plantain so large that he now has cause to think his height may have been affected in the process.
Times have changed and he can now afford to purchase a whole damn plantation, but how did Inietimi Alfred Odon go from selling bunches of starchy vegetables to selling out concert halls? How did he go from accepting a 500k deal for his “True Story” Album to becoming a high and very well respected authority in the creative space? What has kept him afloat and dry for well over a decade, in the murky waters of the Nigerian music ecosystem?
In addition to gathering information for his feature, these questions were also personally important because I’d once interacted with him in my freshman days at the University of Benin, as an obsessed fan.
Whatever you have seen on MTV Base’s Celeb Living is only a fraction of what Timaya’s living space really looks like. A pampered Rolls Royce first intimidates you at the gate before you even enter the main building – which is, by the way, dipped in such unconventionally sophisticated detailing. Sinking into one of the furniture draped in fur, I had cause to internally question what animal had been killed and skinned illegally for such sinful softness and texture…
“I never had a plan B because music is my first love. I love to sing. That’s the only thing that I can do.”
-Timaya
When fans meet their favorite entertainers, it’s a moment in time to be cherished forever but entertainers meet hundreds of fans daily. For them, it’s really another day, another dollar. Regardless of this reality, I took a shot at refreshing Timaya’s memory of our encounter in the capital of the “nation’s heartbeat” but as expected, it didn’t register