•Says his grandma taught him how to sing
•How he lost his mother at a tender age
The “Reggae Blues” crooner, Harrysong, in an exclusive interview with Ugochi Ndukwe and Debo Popoola of TheCapital Magazine purged out without hold back, his mind-burgling grass to grace story, of how he transcended – and still transcending – from being an up and coming act to a hit-maker.
Every successful people have a story to tell, especially the one of how they moved from being like every other ordinary people to being successful people. But the gap between being ordinary and being successful looks on the surface like an inch, but deeply, it is a journey of thousands of miles.
Harrysong talked about his upbringing and how he lost his mother to the cold hand of death at an early age. He was 13 when his mother died and he had to share his childhood between his step-mother and his grandmother whom he said inspired his music.
He said: “Growing up for me was quite interesting. I grew up with my step-mother and my grandmother. Growing up with my grandmother was fantastic; I learnt a lot of things. My grandma has the sweetest alto voice I’ve ever heard, she inspired me on melodies and other things that I’ve learnt how to do.
“While growing up with my step-mother, I learnt lessons on how to appreciate life, lessons on how to keep my home and not break it when I settle down.
“I learnt fishing from my grandma, she loves fishing and I love fishing too. I also learnt a lot about home, family, appreciating love. So every support I got from my coming up, when it comes to the music, I got it from my grandma. She will do anything to make me happy. “
Harrysong also talked about his struggles in the music industry.
“Coming up, I can remember several occasions where I had to pay MCs just to allow me to perform. I used to pay like N5, 000, N10, 000 just to perform, sometimes they will allow you and some would not after collecting the money because they don’t know you. They don’t want to entrust you to their platform and you come and mess it up for them. That’s how it was; those are the challenges most upcoming artiste encounter.”
His breakthrough moment
“There was one comedian, Gbenga Adeyinka, he was the first person that gave me the biggest platform ever in my life. He gave me the platform that made me in the industry till today and people still talk about it till date.
“It was during the NMVA, I wrote the theme song and I was asked to come for rehearsal, then I used to play at Ojey’s night club in Surulere where I collected N2000, N3000. There was no time to go for the rehearsal. So I got there, it was the time for the event at Eko Hotel. It was filled up, nobody knew Harrysong. The Comedian said he will give me the opportunity to perform. But when I got there, the comedian first said no, that other artistes have been lined up for performance, people like Wizkid and other artistes.
“I can remember his words clearly, he said: ‘you cannot perform, besides you didn’t come for rehearsal. You upcoming artiste, una no dey hear word”. But I kept on begging him. He had been to Ojey’s before and seen me performing.
“Later he agreed to allow me perform after I promised him I won’t flop the show because he believed in what he saw in my performance at Ojey’s
“He slotted me in after a performance; I was at the backstage praying when I was called on for my performance. I performed and wowed the crowd, I really can’t say for sure what happened or how it happened, and the crowd were screaming and dancing. It turned out that my performance was the best performance of the evening. That was when I just released “I’m in Love”. It’s still on YouTube.
“On my way out, the organizers took me upstairs to give me a room. As I was trying to go back stage, the crowd started shouting… ‘Oh he’s coming again!’ My room was changed like three times because people were trying to look for where I was.
“That performance at the NMVA changed my life. Gbenga Adeyinka gave me that opportunity I will never forget. Those are people I can never ever forget in my life. He saw through me when I was nothing and believed in me. That performance gave me confidence. Now if I’m going to do a show anywhere, it is easy for me to get through especially when I’m with my band.”
