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How Kanye West & Oliver Twist Launched Me Into International Brand, D’banj Reveals As He Clocks 40 (pics)

Many only got to hear the brief story of the relationship between D’Banj and American rapper and music legend, Kanye West. Only a few really know how it came about or his contributions to the former Mo’hits Records’ artiste career.

With no doubt, ‘Oliver Twist‘ will be the answer majority would name when asked which D’banj’s song took him international. The song which made waves throughout Africa, United Kingdom and even in America, shot the Koko Master into a new phase of his music career.

Speaking with Joey Akan in the part 2 of their recent interview from ‘Afrobeat Intelligence’ series — released today, June 11, 2020, the Nigerian entertainer who celebrated his 40th birthday couple of days ago said Oliver Twist was like the icing on the cake for the crossover.

“It won’t have been believable without one of ours doing it. And not doing it like them, but doing it like us. Most times, people that have left. When you hear them, and you hear their hit records like top ten that have gone global, you don’t even believe that the person is Nigerian,” D’banj said when asked what was the greatest thing ‘Oliver Twist’ did for him and the continent.

He continued: “It’s not when you hear the name that you now believe that it’s possible. Like we heard of Nas being Nigerian, we now checked his father and saw that his father is Oludara Jones. We heard of Shola Anna and Sade Adu. When you hear those names you’d be like wow. But when you hear their songs, you no go see yourself inside. So that is what ‘Oliver Twist’ did for me. It finally gave me that stamp to say ‘yes, this can happen for all of us.'”

According to the DB Records boss and frontline artiste born Oladapo Daniel Oyebanjo, he didn’t just want to be with Kanye West then for the sake of “chilling and jumping up and down”, but rather to use his influence to grow his brand.

“Kanye was humble enough, smart enough to see the future. To render not just his presence as a stamp, but he said that the whole GOOD Music should come.”

The ‘Emergency’ singer also narrated how he got Kanye to grace the official video of the song which was initially played by DJ Ryan from BBC at the Hyde Park countdown into the new year.

‘Oliver Twist’ which was first released in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2012, got played immediately after the countdown from 10, 9, 8…etc and D’banj was advised by the DJ to release it because it was a potential hit.

“By that time, Mo’hits don already scatter,” D’banj said. I was just like maybe na God lead me come here. So I just decided to stay there.

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“I stayed in London throughout, e-mailed Kanye because then him no dey use phone. I just put everything the way dem take put the Hyde Park say there’s an opportunity, I think we need to maximize. Him just respond like two days later, ‘where are you. I’m in London too’. He was in London, I was in London too. I went to see him. I played him the song. He said ‘what’s your plan for this song?’ I said I just want to release it here, maximize it here, if you allow me, I’d shoot the video here. He said okay, you can do so.”

“And I said ‘would you be able to show face in the video?’ And he was like, I can’t make any promises and just before that he just arranged all his people. Kanye arrive video shoot before me sef.”

The entertainer who recently announced a change of name from Koko Master, Eja Nla, Kinihun Funfun, Bangalee to ‘God’s Chosen‘ on his 40th birthday, spoke highly of Kanye West in the interview.

According to the father-of-one, Kanye is like a big brother to him, considering the fact that he was born a day before the Nigerian singer.

D’banj spoke on how the Grammy-winning rapper advised him to use the planned funds ( $750,000) to bring him down to Nigeria alongside Big Sean, Pusha T and Idris Elba, to push his project instead.

“He was like ‘wow, you have this kind of money?,” D’banj told Joey Akan. Why don’t you put it towards your project?”

“I told him I had already paid Big Sean, Pusha T, everybody but I wanted him because I wanted the whole Good Music. He was like ‘this is too expensive for you.’ He actually showed concern for my business and said, let’s leave the money. We didn’t have ‘Oliver Twist’ then. He said’put it into the marketing of your project and there’d always be time.’”

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D’banj & Don Jazzy

The singer who also inked an Ambassadorship deal with Heritage Bank on his 40th birthday celebration, also narrated how his meeting with Kanye West went.

Long before the popularity of photo-sharing platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc came to life, D’banj and his then- good friend and co-founder of Mo’Hits records, Don Jazzy, had difficulties proving their meeting with Kanye.

They had to result into making the US rapper to tweet about their meeting so Nigerians would belief it more than it coming from them:

“And I remember when we were going into Nigeria the first time, and it was only Twitter that was reigning at the time. And people had heard that we were with Kanye, but they didn’t believe. And I remember Jazzy saying ‘go meet am na, go meet am, make e tweet as we dey go so people go believe.’ I went and met Kanye and said, ‘baba we’re leaving o. Our people won’t believe. They doubt a lot. They won’t believe we met you. And he said ‘oh really?’”

Surprisingly for him, Yeezy was down with the idea even though he made them anticipate the tweet longer than expected:

“And Kanye said, ‘what do you think?’ I said maybe you can tweet for us and say “Yo D’banj and Don Jazzy get back here quick.’ And he says ‘oh really, oya write the tweet.’ It was us that composed the tweet, he looked at it and edited it the way he liked it. He said it’s good, and he’d tweet it. We thought he will post it in front of us before we dey go airport. But he said he’d tweet it. So we were now gallivanting around. Wey we dey wait say ‘baba no do us like this. (laughs). But if we were doing that, we were going to miss our flight to Nigeria, so we had to leave. So we now beged people there and they said ‘no wahala na, baba go do am.’”

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“I remember we were getting to the airport as the tweet just enter Jazzy shout. me too I shout, I say that’s it. It’s over. As we dey reach Nigeria like this, everywhere was on fire. So kudos to him. And I feel he’s the person that they should ask how he feels, seeing that he’s the first person ever to have spotted Afrobeats and taken the risk. And when he met us, he even told us that he had even been working with university students who were studying African music. He wanted the sound, like ‘who did these drums?’”

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