I don't feel bad when criticised -Audu Maikori

Audu Maikori is one of the biggest guns in the Nigerian entertainment industry. As founder of Chocolate City, he’s been behind the mainstream success of many artists, MI, Ice Prince, Nosa and BrymO included. OSEYIZA OOGBODO BLOG met him recently and Maikori didn’t hold back on the issues raised.s How difficult or easy is it to run a record label in Nigeria? It’s very difficult, but very easy. Can you explain properly? It’s very difficult because it’s something you’re investing your time, your money, your resources, your every waking moment, because it’s almost like a 24-hour job because something’s always happening. It’s very difficult because you’re managing emotions, you’re managing all sort of things. But if you’re passionate about it, if it comes from your heart, then it’s easy. Is it profitable or not? Depends on what your model is. Let’s say in our own case, it’s profitable. Now. But not immediately so. It’s taken us four, five years to get to the point whereby we started making money. And then of course, depending on what your model is, do you want to reinvest, reinvest in the product, or do you just want to buy cars and suchlike? So your model will determine its profitability or otherwise. So what would be your advice to prospective record label owners? For us, it’s a bit more than a record label. We’re a 360 degree company. There’s the recording label part, the management part, and also the marketing part. You cannot be strictly a record label and survive now. You have to ensure that your brand is able to be monetised. That’s what we tried to do and it’s now a brand on its own. So that’s our model, and of course models differ. Would you say you’ve been discouraged by BrymO, one of your artists who walked out of his contract after you had invested so much in him? Why would I be? It’ll keep happening. It’s normal. I think it’s very obvious that there’s no business that doesn’t have its ups and downs. Even you as a staff of National Mirror. There will be times you disagree. But it doesn’t mean that National Mirror’s a bad newspaper or that you’re a bad employee. It just means that you are not on the same page anymore. The question is, how do you disengage? Do you do it as the contract said or do you do it as someone who doesn’t know there’s a contract involved? We have contracts, we need to keep them, we need to obey the law. You spoke about emotions. And the trend in the industry now is that artists just walk out of their contracts. What sort of emotion makes them do that? I don’t know if it’s an emotion, and I’m not an artist myself, so I wouldn’t know. What I’m saying is that at the end of the day, these are matters that have to deal with commercial breakdown or relationship breakdown or communication breakdown. It could be anything. And I wouldn’t venture as to what it is. There will always be disagreements in every relationship, but if you’re both aligned, you will stay together, but if you’re not aligned, then you go. When your artists are criticised, how do you feel? Like Victoria Kimani, a fellow artist blasted her that she couldn’t sing and all that. How did you feel at that point in time, considering you had invested so much in her? I don’t feel anything. Every artist I’ve ever brought out has not been overwhelmingly received. You see, we’re like prophets, so we see somebody who doesn’t look like anything and we bring them out, people will talk against them, but when they eventually blow, the same people will now be like oh, wow, so it’s a normal thing.