Eyanro Olusegun Ayokanmi known by his lovers as Frequencie in this exclusive interview with IMPACT NEWS share his thought about the industry and the era of disruption occasioned by the global covid-19 pandemic. Excerpts:
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The global Pandemic has caused disruption. Lots of industries are learning to adjust to this reality. How has the entertainment industry adjusted to the disruption?
The global pandemic natural disrupted the entertainment industry in general. However you know the introduction of ICT has actually revolutionalised the way we distribute our music. Yes, we may not be able to attend shows and all that but if we make music we can still put it on download channels for people to download. If you already have your fan base it will attract a lot of download and you will be able to get royalties from that.
What we need to do is that as we embrace ICT revolution in the industry we need to know how to commercialise music activities without going all out. You see that some artists actually organized shows during the pandemic. They entertained their fans from the corner of their home. You just need to build a good name for yourself, have a good firm, the kind of genre of your music must be unique and you must have the message you want to pass across.
The industry is loaded with ‘Lamba’ that has no regard to motivating or songs focusing on societal issues, what is the cause of this?
Music should pass a message. The kind of message you pass should be the one that has impact on the society, the one that would be able to influence the society for good. If you check out my first music that trended then, WAZOBIA. It preaches unity and oneness among Nigerians. It addresses unity in diversity. The other one I recently released, Afroculture, it encourages Africans to embrace African cultures and project it to the world. That is the kind of lamba that I dish out to the world.
During the lockdown, you engaged in humanitarian endeavours, what was the motivation?
I feel when others are down and they cannot go out. Here in Kwara state, we distributed palliatives worth one million naira in food and cash. It is not because we do not have something to do with money but we feel we need to impact the society. We need to cater for the less privileged in order to cushion the effect of the lockdown.
Are you signed to any record label?
I am with Soft LifeStyle label. Record labels help push your music and add value to your music. It is a win-win situation in a relationship between the artist and the record label.
There are frequent news in the media about issues between record labels and artists, why is this common?
For young and upcoming artists, before you sign any agreement with a record label, ensure that you read through and read in between the lines to be sure you are satisfied with the agreement. Do not be in a hurry to jump into agreement just because you need promotion. It doesn’t work like that because there are clauses in the agreement that you need to pay serious attention to.
Tell us about your recent music project?
I recently released an EP, the Afrocultre EP we have pushed it to online channels. If not for covid-19 that made me stop the radio tours, we have been to Lagos, Ibadan and to other places to promote the project and we have also promoted it in Kwara state and it is still playing on radio stations across the country. I hope to follow up with that after these lockdown restrictions. Right now am working in collaboration with my record label to help upcoming artists to produce videos. We are planning to work with 20 upcoming artists here in Kwara state. Apart from that I have done a couple of videos on my latest EP that I hope to release to the world soon.
