CLASSIC JUJU … UPCLOSE & PERSONAL WITH SEYE AKINS
The romantic environment of the exquisite Palmview Manor welcomed us as we arrived.
We headed for the pool side.
The clean fresh air, glistening pool, hut-like table settings, comfy seats and warm sunshine had you wishing to elope to some distant island.
… so much peace and quiet …and you just lap it up.
As he moved forward and took a sit, I really got to have a look at him.
Looked like a teenager.
He is Seye Akins.
Realname; Oluseye Akinfeyinwa.
He is 22 years old now.
Soft spoken, slim, average height, graceful and quite cute.
He is a singer… a musician through and through.
He dresses ‘nice and easy’… cool, but his gear can get really dramatic and colourful on stage. He loves the native wears… Abetiaja caps and all.
The fourth of five children, with an Assistant Managing Director father, a supermarket owning mother, a beautician sister, a footballer brother, and another saxophone playing one.
He and his little sister had a whole lot to look up to.
Little Seye loved music of every kind.
At age 12, he joined the choir only to find that he couldn’t sing!
He was determined to learn so he stayed.
He started with the instruments to keep him in the choir, and worked on his singing.
He learnt to sing by listening to the others.
… listening to the parts, the harmonies, and all that.
Eventually little Seye began to sing with the choir and went with the choir for concerts and kept learning.
He is still learning… doesn’t fancy himself perfect yet.
He still intends to go to music school.
In about 3 weeks he resumes at the Peter King Music School at Badore, Ojo, Lagos.
He says “… I know the ‘practical’ aspect of music, but I need to learn the ‘theory’… That’s why I must go to my music school”.
But he intends to work through school.
Mum & Dad initially hesitated to bless his career choice. Mum didn’t think her quiet son could face an audience… and she was wrong.
At age 19, Seye took the bull by the horn and took the Juju music industry head on.
This is no mean feat: It takes the instrumentally matured to hit the Juju scene and make any impact at all.
Now he has 2 awards under his belt:
Amen awards; Youngest Juju Artiste, 2007.
Amen Awards; Best Juju Album Of The Year, 2007.
With the choir it was gospel, but now his music has a rich Juju flavour whilst resting on classical instrumental sound.
Hence he calls his music ‘Classical Juju’.
Listening to Seye talk about instrumentals, would inspire you. He knows his instruments.
He plays the keyboard, English konga, base guitar, and the drum sets.
I asked him about the focus of his music, and without hesitation he said: “Blessings, God’s blessings, God’s favour, I love that so much.”
His music is in Yoruba language with English punctuations, but he wouldn’t tag himself as a ‘gospel singer’.
Probably because he wants to be free to talk about life… and talk ‘inspirational’ too.
I asked him why he took a while to bring his videos to the table, and he said they (he and his crew) were so into getting every detail right, that it took about a year to shoot all the videos!
They wanted him with different hair lengths, body weights … they had to travel quite a bit (around the country) to locations ... they had to do shows in between.
Seye Akins is quite busy.
He admits that the schedule gets really tight – hectic.
He was only just returning from an all night show as he sat before me, and hadn’t had any sleep, and when he's done here he'd be headed for another apointment.
He has to do shows every day of the weekend, every weekend, and weekdays are not completely out either.
He writes all his songs, and admits that he was a novice when he started with his first album.
He was fresh out of secondary school and didn’t know very much, so things were kind of slow.
He has matured a lot now and has come to know quite a lot of people in the industry.
Seye has a 22-man band!
Why so many? … his music is very ‘instrument-rich’… 5 talking drummers, 4 back-up singers, a whole lot of strings, guitarists, dancers, konga drummers …
Working with director Julie King he has been able to come up with good stuff.
This young man has performed with King Sunny Ade, Sir Shina Peters, Rugged man, Soul E, Azizat, Pasuma,and on, and on.
He has had big names show up in his videos too. People like, Atorise, Mega99, Obesere, Dare Melody, Soul E.
He helped out with King Sunny Ade’s album as well.
He is involved with the Association of Juju Musicians Of Nigeria, AJUMN, presided by Dipo Gators.
He is hoping to own his own recording studio sometime.
Now we all know that stage performance is major in Nigeria, so I asked who he admired the most stage wise.
He said: Lagbaja ... and for the hip hop scene … he said: P Square.
I couldn’t disagree with him. These are two of the best.
What about his own stage performances? … Seye Akins is prolific. He is very modest about it, but only a couple of days ago, there was a blackout while he was on stage performing.
Everything went out… lights, sound and all.
What did he do?
…he didn’t stop singing…No. Our young man switched to acapella, and had the crowd cheering, dancing, and spraying money.
When the lights came back on… the people yelled - No!
We don’t want the lights anymore…don’t need them!
…and it was a fantastic acapella night.