God Told Me To Quit Music For Sound Engineering – Oluwaseyi Oyekola, Ceo, Annointing Musical Interna

Oluwaseyi Oyekola is the Chief Executive Officer, Anointing Musical International and also a sound engineer expert. In this interview with Glitter News Online reporter Opeyemi Hammed, he spoke extensively on why government should invest in sound engineering, challenges facing the entertainment industry among other interesting issues. Can you briefly introduce yourself? I am Oluwaseyi Oyekola, I went to Alakia Grammar School, Mokola, I proceeded to Aperin Oniyere Grammar School both in Ibadan. After my secondary education, I went to Technical School to study electrical engineering and later proceeded to The Polytechnic, Ibadan to study Electrical Engineering. You have contributed into the music industry, what has music done for you? That’s a big question. To God be the glory, if I still have the grace to come back to the world again, I will still be in the music industry. I’m fulfilled in the entertainment industry. If I should be mentioning what music has impacted into my life, it might sound as if I am bragging or I’m saying what is not true but to God be the glory, I have achieved all the necessary things a successful man should achieve in life. I give glory to God. In this business, my name is in the forefront when it comes to sound engineering not only in Ibadan but Nigeria as a whole. As a sound expert, how would you describe music of yesteryears with today’s music? The difference between music in the olden days and the present style of music is wide. Music of those days was all about promoting our traditional music and showcasing our culture but today, the way we practice music, it’s like we are going the way of the Western world, Western world in the sense that when we call something hip-hop, every Fuji artist, juju artist and even gospel artistes are now injecting hip hop styles to their song and it’s affecting our way of life and it is also affecting our business in terms of what we give out, it has changed our way of setting up, our time, our way of dressing. So, music of the olden days is totally different from what we play now. As a sound expert, what’s your assessment for Nigeria’s entertainment industry? I applaud Nigerian artistes. Nigeria is not lacking in terms of entertainment, though we may be lacking in terms of equipment. All the videos we are seeing on TV now, most of them are shot locally, so entertainment in Nigeria is not moving backward even it is competing with American standard, all the America musicians are now doing collaboration with our artistes. To be frank, we are moving forward day by day. So to revive it, those in the industry are reviving it themselves, it is a natural development, I don’t see any shortcoming. Assuming you want to collaborate with any musician, who would you like to collaborate with? If I may correct that, I was into music by nature, I play music then but since the day I have got a call to come and establish sound engineering God told me to quit music for sound engineering, so it’s my younger brother; the last born of my family, that is now taking it up music as a career now. So he is the one that can have collaboration with any musician, personally, I don’t have any collaboration with any artiste presently. What I can do is to bring all the musicians together for a concert. With all these activities and your busy schedule, how do you relax? People have been asking me this question. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I don’t womanize but the way I see my relaxation is that this business is a relaxation itself on its own, we package the shows, we make people happy, and when our fans are excited definitely we are happy too. Assuming you are not in the music industry what else would you like to do? I would have been a farmer, which I’ve been trying to practice for a long time. You are into something that women like, so how are you coping with females? There is an adage in Yoruba that says what you will not eat, don’t you go near it. I used to run away from women; I know how cunning and manipulating they can be. I used to run away from them so that I won’t be a victim of all kind of things. If I may ask, is there any of your children that have shown interest in your job? Presently, I don’t know whether they have interest because they are still young, and I don’t know if they will have interest in the nearest future. Where do you want to see yourself in the next 5years? Presently, I have a plan and target I want to be expanding and to spread across Nigeria and at the same to have offices overseas. When is your happiest moment? My happiest moment is when I am in God’s presence especially when I’m in the house of God. When were your most embarrassing moments? It is whenever I do or have done a job that is not perfect, I will be so sad, so I don’t pray that I should be having a job that is not perfect. Whenever customer complains about our services I will be so sad. That is why we are trying our best to satisfy our customers. Who are your role models? They are too numerous to mention, I respect some I met, some that we started together and some that are coming up. I won’t like to mention some names so that those that I won’t be able to mention will not get jealous (Laughs). Do you think government can find solution to unemployment in sound engineering? To be frank, this industry is a great industry; government has never had the intention of investing in this industry. This business is wealth creation, if government can come to our rescue, sound engineering will solve most problems facing Nigeria as a country. If government can invest heavily in local production because many of our equipments are being imported, though there are some that can be produced locally like Aluminum, steel, iron steel, plywood, amplifier steel and more. If government can take this job seriously, we can even be selling our local products to the rest of Africa.

ANOINTING MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS DURING OLOJO FESTIVAL...

What are the factors affecting your business? The only factor affecting this business is the kind of recession the country is facing now. Recession has reduced the level of patronage. Before now, we used to have shows every day but now, we only get shows once in a while. Piracy is one of the challenges facing the entertainment industry, what do you think government can do to solve this problem? As I said earlier, government is not helping this business at all. I have the belief that by 2020 Nigeria will be making huge money in entertainment industry and piracy will reduce drastically because most of the artistes are now streaming their songs online. I’m encouraging most of my colleagues to stay strong because entertainment business is going to come out stronger and piracy will be a thing of the past. Because through technological advancement, we are now migrating from CD system of music to online system so by 2020 CDs will be valueless. My advice to pirates is to find something else to do because sooner or later, there will be nothing to pirate again. What’s your advice for those people seeing you as their role model? My advice to them is to be truthful and faithful, they should be committed in anything they are doing or any place they find themselves.