The urge to make money is what drives me -Kehinde Bankole

Kehinde Bankole is one of Nollywood’s most recognized faces. She has starred in both soap operas and movies. But she isn’t just an actress. She’s also a model, singer, TV presenter and all-round entertainer. The question one would then want to ask her is how she’s able to do all she does in entertainment. Is it because she’s talented or because of some other reason? And when the question was put to her, she was equal to answering it. “The urge to make money is what drives me to excel in everything I do,” she said. “In order to make money, you have to be excellent, and that’s why I strive to be excellent at all times.” Explaining further, she said, “I’m an entrepreneur, but more into anything that has to do with the media, that’s what I do. I can present, I can anchor shows, anything that can bring money. I can sing, I can act, I can model and all that. “And my multimedia career started with the need to make money. It wasn’t even a decision actually. It was just something that happened by itself. It all started with the need to make money, the need to sustain myself, to survive. So it actually started with me singing to make money. No, no, it started from modelling. And what inspired the modelling was that I went for a beauty pageant. “The first one I ever went for was Miss Commonwealth in 2003. I made top ten, but didn’t win, and it made me realize, oh, even if I didn’t get the crown, or made top two, I could make money from modelling, and you know, I’ve always had the need to make money, so immediately we came out from the camp, I started going for auditions, I took my pictures around, and I got little here, little there, and all the while, I was still in the choir in the church, I used to sing, only for me to discover that you can even make money from singing, so I wrote proposals out to people. I wrote to Jimi Odumosu, then Wale Adenuga, a few other people. The responses I got, I followed up and did a few soundtracks, for Binta And Friends, Super Story, Papa Ajasco, and for Yoruba movies like Basiratu Baseje. So those two things began because of the need to make money. But when I stepped into them, I began discovering other things. I began to go for drama auditions. But later, I now felt more passionate about certain things among all of them. And what I’m really passionate about is acting. But the greatest passion of them all is music.” And on why she wanted to start making money, she said, “The need to make money came from discipline and the spirit of independence. You want to be able to do something for yourself. It’s not everything that your parents can do for you. You have to do certain things for yourself. And to get those certain things done, you’ll have to sit down and think, what can I do to make things work for me? “Everything you get takes an amount of work. So I told myself, I need this, I need that, let me not bother my parents about this, let me be independent to be able to be able to provide that thing for myself, so that’s how the need to make money came about. And on if she has made the money she so desired, she said, “I wanted to make money ... but I’ve made fame. I’ve encountered inspiration, attained knowledge, and my mind has been broadened. I started out wanting to make just money but I’ve learnt about the beauty of art. It’s priceless. Nobody can pay you for your art or what you can do.”