Yemi Alade: It’s tough to have virtue in this industry

Twenty-six-year-old Yemi Alade is a super talented singer – a fact that doesn’t seem to matter much to her – with a growing profile as one of Nigeria’s biggest musical exports. 

After winning the Peak Talent show in 2009, it took the next five years of persistent hard work and prayers before she finally found her sound with the continental hit song, Johnny. Since then she has released a smash album titled ‘Kings and Queens’ with several successful singles. This year, she is up for the Best Female awards at the MTV Africa Music Awards and Song of the year. She is also nominated for BET Awards Best International act:Africa.

In this exclusive interview with TheCable, Yemi Alade talks about self-discovery, the surprises, the scares, the hardships and rewards of her journey to fame and fortune so far.

When and how did your sound as an artiste change?
I am not sure there was any change in sound but before Johnny or before Ghen Ghen love, I knew that I had been recording all kinds of songs and I never stuck to any kind of genre. I worked with R&B, highlife or whatever it is.

But I can say that after Johnny, when people accepted that particular sound, I started to modify it but I didn’t change it. I used just that as a platform and I continued working from there.

How do you describe that sound?
It’s a fusion of Afro, pop, R&B and High life. Ghen Ghen Love didn’t have High-life. It just had Pop, R&B and Afro, but no High-life. So my genre of music is what I call ‘Afropolitan’.

What has been the most surprising aspect of your journey so far?
It’s surprising how a song that leaked can just change everything. Despite the fact that it wasn’t an official release, the song just changed everything and that was a very huge surprise for me.

It’s also a surprise that (and I am not trying to boast) but I am very talented musically and vocally; I am blessed with a very wide range and that wasn’t what mattered. I mean talent didn’t matter at all and that was a huge surprise to me. Talent really doesn’t matter that much as people think.

Sorry to say, but even Rihanna isn’t as talented as the star that she is. There many other things that you need to make this work.

Another thing that is sort of a surprise is the things you can acquire by working really hard and staying true to heart, such as the awards and other things.

So what would you say are the other ingredients apart from talent, then?
There are a lot of things. But I’d say Baba God is the main ingredient, the one that has your clock, which is your timer. Other than that, I’d say things like consistency and being true to yourself. In fact, the foundation of everything is self-discovery, discovering the kind of artiste you want to be and the kind of crowd you want to sell your music to. The moment you are true to yourself and you decide that this is who I want to relate to, things would start getting better.

What was been the most difficult part of the journey?
Self-realisation was really difficult part but the finances… This music dey chop money and the unbelievable part of it is that it’s like a bottomless pit such that you keep putting in resources but you don’t really know when it’s going to start piling up.

Also, other than the fact that I’m a female and when you’re looking for favours, sometimes people like…especially when you’re good looking…you know what I mean, some people just want to help themselves. So it’s tough to have virtue in this industry. I am sure even for many bankers and the like, it’s tough to have virtue. Those were the difficult parts.

What has been the scariest part?
One scary part for me, which sometimes happens even up till now, is having to perform or entertain a crowd that you know nothing about. You don’t know if you are going to be looking at you and you’d just have to leave the stage just like that.

So I didn’t really know what was going to happen, so it was always scary for me to relate and I had to overcome that fear and realise that they are all just human beings who just want to have a good time.

Where has that happened to you?
My best performance started with boos. This was late last year when I performed in Tanzania. I was late arriving for the concert, which wasn’t my fault. We took almost half the entire day to fly there then I got there at 1 am when they had been waiting since 11pm.

So I got there and the crowd was just like booing and they don’t speak English so they didn’t understand my explanation so I just started performing and they started singing along to all my songs.

It was hard at first because it was a stadium of over 50,000 people booing me because I was late. That was one the scariest moments for me but turned out to be the best till date.

Have you gone back there since?
No, I haven’t. But I’ve been to other countries around there but I definitely can’t wait to go back. The thing is that they don’t really speak English, mostly Swahili. I don’t know any Swahili but they could sing all my songs, which was really breathtaking for me.

What do you think about your competition and why do you think you deserve to win instead of them?
Seyi Shay is a very powerful vocalist and I respect her hustle. I am also a big fan of a lot of her songs and of course Wizkid as well.

But if you ask me why should Yemi Alade win Best Female category at the MAMA’s and Song of the Year, I would say because I believe it’s been a long time coming and a lot people out there still believe that hard work pays.

I believe that if I do win and when I win that it’s going to be more than just an award. It’s going to inspire a lot of people around the world who are following their dreams and have followed the career of Yemi Alade.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Hmmm. It’s from my dad, actually. And he didn’t say it, he used some things to show it. I can’t do what he did but what he was saying was that in life there are small beans and there are big beans and when you shake it all up, it’s just a matter of time for the small beans to rise above all the big beans.