Flavour, a well-known high-life musician from Nigeria, has shared stories about his modest upbringing and being forced to exit the stage during a PSquare performance.
Sunday, August 18 saw the release of an interview on the “In My Opinion” podcast, in which Flavour described how he started out in music as a church drummer and choir conductor.
He then joined a band or music company that taught young boys.
He claimed that things got difficult after he decided to go solo after 13 years in the band.
Flavour said: “Things started changing when I started seeing some artistes.
“When I left the band, I went into the streets. That was when the game became hard. All this time, I was in a good place; the music had procedures and all, but now I was in the streets.
“Like a street musician hustling, I went to different joints to play. I could sing so many songs; I had like 5,000 songs I could sing and play to entertain people.”
He clarified that he was starting to develop a fan following and that he used to perform frequently at City Centre in Enugu, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. However, he claimed that larger performers received higher reviews from the audience when they arrived and played for shorter periods of time.
He recalled: “We play from 8pm until 3am, but then I see these artistes; they play for like 30 minutes, and everybody is happy, clapping for them and hailing them. And I’m wondering, ‘what is going on? Are we not same artistes?'”
He then recalled a time P-Square came to the spot to promote their single “Temptation” and how that was a turning point in his life.
Flavour said: “I was playing and immediately P-Square  came in, the manager said, ‘Hello. Off that thing’.
“I switched off and I passed the microphone, went somewhere and sat down.”
Flavour claimed to have noticed the fans singing along with the twins as they performed and questioned whether or not the songs they were singing were ones he also sang.
He claims that this encounter helped him recognise that he needed to change from being just a musician to an artist.
“Then it started occurring to me that these guys, the difference is that they create their sound, go to the studio, and record. That’s how it’s done. So you are just a music man.
“So I decided to change from a music man to an artiste, and that was the difficult part of it because I thought it was going to be easy. I could play, I could sing, but to create your own sound, where are you going to start from?
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“The best way to go about it was to start afresh.”
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