I can't say I'm better than Iyanya -Chidinma

Chidinma, one of Nigeria’s brightest female music stars whose latest single, Lorry, is rocking the airwaves, goes down memory lane with OSEYIZA OOGBODO BLOG on how her music career really took off to the high point it is now. How did you discover your music talent? That was when I went for Project Fame West Africa. Are you saying you had no interest in music before Project Fame? Before Project Fame, it was just a hobby. Just singing here and there, in the church, karaoke. I didn’t know I actually had it in me until I went for Project Fame. And thank God for the teachers we had in the academy, they helped bring out the best in everyone. So what was the greatest thing you learnt there? The greatest thing I learnt there was how to make use of my voice because naturally, I have a very large voice and it took every single teacher to help me contain my voice and make good use of it because it can be scattered all over the place. Most times, I just thank God for them because if I had to pay for the lessons I had, I don’t think I have that much money. Between you and Iyanya who are the most successful Project Fame contestants, would you say you are better and more successful than him? I can’t answer that question. The public can judge for themselves but I can’t answer it. What is your advice to upcoming artists who are aspiring to achieve what you have? I can only say ‘don’t stop dreaming.’ Nobody can take your dream away from you. Nobody. And it doesn’t end with your dream. You work towards it. Hard work pays a lot. I’m a witness to that. Work hard and leave the rest to God and everything will fall in place. Kedike is your most successful song so far. How did you get the inspiration for it? Uhm, Kedike is a love song that I came up with in the studio working with Cobhams. We were to work on a song and it was supposed to be a love song and it was supposed to be like a beat, like ‘You make my heart beat, you make heart go kedike,’ that was it. How long did it take you to record it? It took all of a day. At that point in time, did you think it would change your life? No, I never thought so because I didn’t even like it at the time. How did it then become successful, since you didn’t like it? It was just divine, like nobody knew or understood what happened or what was going on. It just happened. We just saw it and we didn’t even know here in Nigeria that it was massive everywhere until we crossed the borders of Nigeria and we moved to the rest of Africa before we understood how massive it is. Was it what made you go on an Africa tour back then? Yes, yes it was. The demand was getting too much, we were getting too many enquiries so we just had to go on the tour as fast as possible. How was the tour for you? How many countries did you go to? It was a massive tour. We were in almost all the countries. What we met in them was much more than we expected. So in which of them did you have the most memorable experience? It was in Republic of Benin. Cotonou. I remember I couldn’t even stay backstage because it was filled up. I had to go to the stage from the car and it even took me like three minutes to get on stage. Everywhere was crowded and somehow I discovered I wasn’t with my shoes so I performed without shoes. What sort of venue was it? It was a stadium. My second memorable performance was in Cote D’Ivoire. I had to go there twice because the first time, it was in a stadium but they had, I think, problems with transportation so people couldn’t move out of their houses, except those that had their own cars so I had to go back.