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What are you currently working on?
I’ve been so busy recording my songs and I’m getting ready to release my album come October this year. My first album “Super Sun” came out in July 2011 and I’ve been recording with Cobhams Asuquo. He is my producer, we’ve been doing some recordings in New York and Houston, that is in the United State of America. And in my village as well, I mean Karo in Nasarawa State. Cobhams and I want to add African sounds into the album. We are seriously working on that and that is why we’ve also been shuttling from Lagos to Karo, my village. That is what we have been doing at the moment.
What is the title of your album?
There’s no name for it now, but it should be out by October and we are all looking forward to it. And of course, I’m also signed on as Glo Ambassador. So, I’ve been working with Glo in their commercials and in many events like this. This is to bring a certain kind of value to them, the organization in general. So, I’ve been doing a lot of things with Globacom, shows, commercial and also, I just got married as well. There are many things I’m laying my hands on right now.
What really influenced you into music?
I grew up in a musical family and my dad used to play the guitar. Though he is late now, he was a politician, Hon. Amos Bez Idakula, I was named after my dad as a child. My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was about 9 year old. He used to play to my mum in the living room and they recorded their duets. My mother would be singing while my father would be playing the guitar. You need to see their show of romance and love. While me and my other siblings chorus for the two lovebirds. So, my growing up was fantastic but just that my dad died when I was still a kid of 12 years. This was what triggered my going into the music industry.
Though I didn’t want to be a musician, I only played the guitar which my dad taught me. Also, as a child, I listened to a lot of gospel and country songs, I was also in the choir. But what made me go fully into music was when I was a student in Covenant University, there was this slogan then what is your purpose? What are you here for? What plans do you have for your future and nation? I kept on hearing these slogans, this made me read a lot and with the help of the preaching that was going on in the school, I discovered I was meant to go in fully into music so as to leave a legacy and add value to people as much as possible. And that is where I stand till this moment, adding value to people through my music.
What was your growing-up like?
Growing up was great. I grew up in Jos where I was born. I was just very interesting growing up in Jos, the weather is cool and very peaceful, it was really amazing like Oyinboland (white man’s land). I went to primary school there. I was born in 1983 but while there, I dabbled into a lot of things. I lost my dad at the age of 12 when I was in Junior Secondary School 2 (JSS2). As I said earlier, my dad was a politician and gubernatorial candidate for Nasarawa State. As a result of his death, my family finances crashed to the extent that my family could hardly afford to pay my school fee s to higher institution. My mum tried her best bringing up four of us children. My mum is a caterer and she is still a caterer till today.
So how were you able to graduate from Covenant University?
God is a wonderful God. An anonymous person paid for my school fee. This person paid everything for me all through. When I finished from Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja, I attended and graduated from Covenant in 2005 with a BSc in Information and Communications Technology but it was later the anonymous person who was paying my school fees all this while became visible. It was the father of my girlfriend, a female friend of mine that has been responsible for the payment of all my school fees since my dad was no longer there to pay. But the painful aspect of it all is that the girl whose dad was paying my school fees is late. She is dead but her parents are still alive but her father paid my school fees all through.
It seems your song “That stupid song” actually brought you to limelight?
Men!! It was really a great song. I love the collaboration with Praiz, he really brought a lot of musicality into it and music as well. And it w as just too amazing to have a producer as Cobhams, he created the idea and he was able to share the idea with me and really, it was something that hadn’t been created like that before. Ina little space of time, I was just too excited about it. That video of “That Stupid Song” we shot was the first African video to be premiered on BET 106, Park International. This is an American hip-hop and R&B music video show. And I was the first African artist to world premier my music video on BET and the first Nigerian artist to do a solo show at the Tunes Store in Soho, New York. I also had a show at the Tunes Store in Santa Monica, California for Black Music 2 years ago.
Who is the originator of the song?
Cobhams and I wrote the song. “That Stupid Song” was created accidentally. It happened on this very day when somebody came to the studio and said he wanted “a Stupid Song” it just struck an idea in the mind of Cobhams and he said to me, hey! Why don’t we make a song like this? Call it “Stupid Songs.” That was what triggered or brought about it. And we invited Praiz to do collaboration with me. It was really fantastic.
I asked Praiz this same question if “That Stupid Song brought him to limelight but he said Project Fame did?
Yeah! Praiz is right. Project Fame actually did but his other songs like Rich and Famous did as well. A lot of people like his songs.
Who is Mrs. Bez Idakula?
My wife’s name is Bolatito Ladoja but now she is Idakula. She is the daughter of the former governor of Oyo State, Rasheed Ladoja. My wife is a graduate of International Relations from Warwick University, she also holds a Master’s degree in Management from Imperial College, London.
How did you meet your wife?
Whao! I went to Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja while she went to Olashore International School. You will find out that in some private schools even public schools, you are likely to meet a lot of people you don’t even know who they are. These 2 schools and other schools had games together then. I met people that would come from other schools and we all became friends automatically. It then happened that my wife’s brother was my very good friend and her brother was dating a girlfriend (female friend) of mine. So we used to hang out together after school. It was later my friend, Ladoja Jnr. introduced Bolatito to me as his sister. I met my wife through her brother who was my best friend. That was how my wife joined our circle of friends and we all started hanging out in the same circle. That was how we met and before we knew it we parted ways only to meet again when she came back to Nigeria for her NYSC.
How long did you date?
We dated for 3 years, one year was long distance because she was in London schooling and 2 years back here in Nigeria.
Was it love at first sight?
It wasn’t love at first sight. When you hang out with people always, you automatically become very close. Really, I’m not the outgoing person but my wife is. Back then, she would come beckoning on me to come out for jiving, she would tell me, let’s go out for fun Bez. She did this on some many occasions. So, permit me to say that my wife really balanced me. I’m a reserved type while she is the outgoing and social person. My wife really balances me and that is very important. As I’m with you now, once I get home I’ll just be indoor till maybe, I have something or rehearsal to do. So, my day is very structured. When I go out to buy something, I don’t really chat with everybody. But my wife is different, she always tells me, let’s go to Cinema, shows, events. My wife is also very supportive of me right from when we were dating to this day. My wife tells me, oh, I like your music but why can’t we do it this way or that way. There was a time when she was doing her NYSC allowance, she would send me N400 recharge card because then to recharge my phone was always difficult for me, then I won’t have credit.
That means you met while in the university?
I met her again when I was leaving the university while she was serving her NYSC. That was how we met again, you know we had known each other earlier but our relationship blossomed to what we have now, husband and wife.
Whenever you come out to sing people always go gaga. How would you describe your kind of music?
I’ll describe my music as alternative soul and it is you singing from your heart that is soul. You able to create and sing the music that you love. So, what makes it alternative is the sound. And alternative sound is the sound that is not common and why is it not common is because it’s very original, you are creating from the scratch, a very original soul just like Fela who used the drum. So, Fela used everything available, to him that everybody uses but he used it create Afro-beat, nobody else created Afro-beat but he had everything there except Fela who sang from it. So, we have the guitar and other instruments so, how do we create something that is entirely different. So I went to record in my village to bring in the local drummers, to make it something different and something interesting. So that is what makes my genre of music alternative, that is something different and unique. So, you can put in rock, hip hop, soul, and create something that is unique, that is why I call it alternative sound.
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