Nigerian Artistes Lead Channel O Nominations

The fifth edition of the Channel O Music Awards has been slated for October 29, 2009 in Carnival City in Gauteng, South-Africa. And as expected, due to the video music revolution in Nigeria, Nigerian artistes topped most of the nominations.
The nominees for the 2009 DStv’s Channel O Music Video Awards were announced at a press conference at Melrose Arch, Johannesburg on Tuesday 14 July. Now in its fifth year, the awards honour music videos that have been played on the channel over the past one year between June 1, 2008 and May 31st, 2009. There are 14 categories, with a 15th Special Recognition Award - which hasn't been announced yet.
The nominees were chosen by the channel looking at the quality of the music videos as well as their popularity on the channel, the number of times they were played, viewers feedback and the number of requests for the videos. Home boys like Naeto-C and Darey have two nominations each. While Naeto-C was nominated in the Best Hip-Hop Video and Video of the Year categories with the song Kini Big Deal while Darey was nominated in the categories of Best Male Video and Best R&B Video with the song Not The Girl. German based Nneka has three nominations in categories such as Best Female Video, Best Newcomer and Best African West with the song Heartbeat. Other Nigerian artistes nominated have one nomination each. Sasha was nominated for Best Female Video with the song Only One and Bantu for the Best Reggae Dancehall category with the song Where Di Water. G-Exploits and 2face Idibia were nominated for Best R&B Videos with Tear Rubber and Enter the Place respectively while Durela and Kelly Hansome were nominated for Best Afro-pop with the songs Enu Ose and Maga Don Pay respectively. P-Square and Mo’Hits Crew were nominated for the Best Duo or Group with the songs No One Like You and Pere respectively while the likes of Ikechukwu, J-Martins and 9ice will slug it out in Best Africa West Video category.

KIDNAPPERS RELEASED DAYO ADAENEYE'S FATHER-IN-LAW

Joy and happiness returned to the house of Chief Negbenevor, the founder of Negbenevor Schools and also the father-in-law of respected music business man and Senior Partner of Primetie Africa, Dayo Adenye, on Friday July 17th, 2009.
According to the information available to Seun Apara, the elder state man was kidnapped at his residence on Wednesday July 15 by unknown men. Glitz Stage was also informed that the particular car that was used to take away the respected community leader has been packed in the street for more than three days. This incident we gathered got the whole of the family very worried and pressed every necessary buttons towards the eventual release of the business man.
This reporter tried to speak with some members of the family on Friday July 17, 2009 after the release to know the actual course why Chief Negbenevor was kidnapped. No matter how much we tried, there were not ready to let out any information. “The most important thing now is that the man is released. We want to keep it very low”, a family source said.

TONY OKOROJI WRITES NAME IN GOLD

Former PMAN President, Sir Tony Okoroji, has written his name in gold. On Tuesday April 28, he launched the most needed book right now, Copyright, Neighbouring Rights & New Millionaires at the Nigerian Institute of Internal Affairs in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Present at the occasion were Chief Leo Stan Eke, the chairman of Zinox Computers, Emeka Mba, the Director-General of the National Film and Video Ce
nsors Board, Mr Saemund Fiskvik from Oslo, a member of the Board of Norwegian Copyright Development Association, NORCODE, Onyeka Onwenu, Stella Damascus, Segun Arinze, Sammie Okposo, Cally Ikpe, Efe Omoregbe, Rasimono, Muma Gee, Stephnora Okere. Others are John Njamah, Bob Manuel, DJ Jimmy Jatt, Lara George, Dele Abiodun, Tee-Mac Itselli, Patrick Doyle and many others.

Alec Godwin Robbed

The CEO of Alec Music, Alec Godwin, lost some of his belongings recently during an armed robbery attack. Some of the items he was dispossessed of include his laptop, international passport, phones, camera and an undisclosed amount of money.
The incident we gathered happened along Lagos - Ibadan Express way about 8pm on his way from Benin . He played along with the robbers and that actually saved him from being beaten black and blue. Narrating his ordeal to Seun Apara through an electronic mail few days back, he said he never knew he was about to be robbed until the robbers started dispossessing him of his belongings. “It was not good a experience for me at all. There was a transport line bus ahead of me, the bus’ movement was suddenly obstructed and I quickly applied the brake pedal to avoid collision. Before we could say jack, about 15 men came out from different corners of the bush. The ones that came to my car practically collected everything I had except my car. They made away with my international passport, laptop, phones, camera and lots of cash”, said Alec Godwin who is currently working on his debut album

Cobhams Asuquo's Greatest Wish

Multi-talented visually impaired producer and the CEO of COMP (Cobhams Asuquo Productions), is not your every day person. He has been able to prove to us that his sight is not a disadvantage.
Born into a humble family in Cross-River State, music has been part of him right from his early days. He makes sounds with everything around him that vibrates as a result of touch. “I produce sounds earlier in life with spoons, forks, knives, tables, my chest and every other thing around me that can produce sounds until I later found musical instruments. It was self thought but I have those who mentored me. My primary and secondary school music teachers were actually part of them. I will rather say I was taught the art of producing by God”. Today, he is one of the biggest producers in Nigeria. He won the Hip Hop World Awards for the best producer in 2008.
His challenges are meeting up with everyday sound and the ever changing demands of people. Contrary to what might be on the minds of people, he didn’t see his sight as a disadvantage. “My sight has never been a disadvantage because I have a fantastic team am working with. Like I always say, most surgeons don’t do all the surgery by themselves but they take the glory for it. That is the case here. They are my eyes and my extra ears”.
Due to his amazing talents and the different collaborations he has done with other artistes, many would taught by now he should be planning of releasing his own album, but Cobham is not thinking towards that direction. He is presently into capacity building and he may not release an album until he is 60 years. “Right now, am in the business of developing musical sounds for people and am enjoying it. The challenge of working with new people is actually very huge but I found it interesting”.
Commenting on the state of the music industry in Nigeria, he says it is better than what it used to be. “The business is becoming more lucrative but need more structure to be called an industry. Our artistes are beginning to compete favourably with other international artistes which is a plus on its own”, he said.
As popular as Cobham is among the Nigerian artistes, he still desires to work with some Nigerian artistes but with reference to a particular legend. “There are still some great Nigerian artistes I will love to work with but first them is Onyeka Onmenu. I grew up listening to lots of her stuffs. She is amazing.” Internationally, he will love to work with Don Moen and other ‘Integrity Music’ artiste.
One of his aspirations is to help develop the music industry and put it on the world map. Funny how it may sounds, he didn’t have any regret in life. “Regrets? I can remember any. Growing up was fanstatic”. His greatest wish is far different from what we would have expected. “My greatest wish is to make a heaven and that is not even a wish. I need to work towards it. My greatest wish is to keep my happiness. Am not sure I want to go about wishing. Most things in life happen as a result of work or prayer. God has already designed everything the way he wanted it. I just want to live a fulfilled life”.
His production outfit, Cobhams Asuquo Productions (COMP), is currently into capacity building. They discover, nurture and expose talents. Once the artiste is good and there is space for him, they will work with him. The few on the list now are Pheel of Star Quest fame, Omolara Ayodeji, Jone of West Africa Idols and others. He didn’t fail to tell us what we should expect from them. “Expect some of the best crop of artistes that has ever come out of Nigeria. The new breed of artistes who will do music the way it ought to be done. A new crop of artistes who has sought expression for a very long time and finally found it in an enabling environment to express music for what it is and not necessary for the commercial value but because is what their heart is inclined to. They will express it and get paid for it. Just expect something extra-ordinary to hit the Nigerian music industry very soon”, he said.
Make no mistake about it. Amidst all these, marriage is on the mind of Cobham. He will be getting married soon and the identity of the lady will soon be revealed. “Yes, I will be getting married soon, hopefully this year”. The lady he is getting married to has been a recurring decimal in his life for some time and they are a good pair.
As part of the blessings of God in his life, he recently moved into a new house in Ogudu GRA, Lagos which now serves as his home and office.

Infinity Returns

Contrary to the their break-up speculations after one of the prominent member of the group, Kehinde, dumped the group for a solo career, the group has bounced back and ready to take their career to an enviable pinnacle.
The four-man group, Sunny, Joseph, Samson and David are ready for new challenges without Kehinde, the former group member. Their new album tentatively titled ‘The Seven laws of Infinity’ is almost done. The seven tracker album will comprise different genres of music because they don’t wish to be boxed into a corner as gospel artiste. The first single from the album, Sepe (brewed local gin), which they described as ‘Holy Sepe’ will be released in the couple of days while they round off work on the remaining two tracks.
The group declined that the departure of kehinde didn’t affect them in any form. “Infinity is still a very strong gospel group. The departure of Kehinde didn’t affect us in any form. We have performed in so many concerts after Kehinde left and nobody even noticed if we lost a member. We were only taking our time as regards our next album so that we can come out with something that will appeal to everybody. There is no point rushing”, said Sunny.
The group also revealed to Glitz Stage about their America and UK tour billed for September and November 2009. “We are having a U.K tour by September which we are seriously working towards and America by November. You can see that we are waxing stronger as a group. We are still very much in touch with Kehinde and we will be performing together in Dublin soon. We were even of great financial support to his solo career”, they concluded.

P-SQUARE DUMPS GLOBACOM

The once upon a time juicy relationship that started on a platter of gold between multi award winning artiste, P-Square and telecommunication giant, Globacom, may hit the rock anytime soon. This is as a result of the fall out by both parties to reach a consensus over the issue of terms regarding their ambassadorial contract.
The relationship between Globacom and P-Square started during the Glo Rock & Rule tour when the company had issues with their prized ambassador, D’Banj. The company decided to drop D’Banj from performing at some of the concert venues owing to some disagreements and the artiste that readily came to their mind as an alternative to D’Banj was P-Square. P-Square allegedly received a whooping N3M per concert till the end of the tour.
The company seemed to have been pleased with their performances during the tour and decided to make them one of the company’s ambassadors. This negotiation had been on for a while now and the company already thought the group had finally conceded to their proposal before the unexpected happened. The group was meant to travel with the Nollywood Globacom ambassadors to South-Africa to shoot a new TV commercial for the company. According to an inside source, they already had the passports of P-Square and their visas to travel to South-Africa had been secured before their manager, Jude Okoye, allegedly came back to collect their passports.
The company had agreed to pay the brothers N40M for two years endorsement deal but they are now rumoured to be asking for N40M each which the company finds outrageous. This is the same company that allegedly paid D’Banj N70M as an ambassador. The battle line seems to be drawn now as there is no going back on the part of the company and the artiste. Diplomacy may be the only available option to resolve the issue.