Sometimes in 2012, ever strong musical marriage between Nigerian pop star D’banj and his former producer and business partner Don Jazzy comes to an end, due to creative differences direction.
Before their break-up saga issue, both D’banj and Don Jazzy achieve success together and also played a vital role of putting Nigeria music on global map as one of the biggest music industry in African continent.
However, during their good old days, D’banj and Don Jazzy passion, synergy, zeal and determination made them to success through all odds, while their biggest feet could still be attribute to ” Oliver Twist ” which is regarded as biggest ever cross-over song from an African artist to the world.
On summer of 2012 his hits “Oliver Twist “, an uptempo dance fusion of Afrobeat and electronic dance music that topped the African charts 2011 and was a top 10 hit in the UK singles chart in 2012 reaching No. 2 on the UK R&B chart.
Some people still believe that ” Oliver Twist ” success is the reason for their separation, but D’banj himself believes its creative direction differences that made him lost his former partner and the rest is a story today. Though, the separation between them sees Don Jazzy and D’banj floats a new label called ” Mavin Records ” and ” DB Records ” respectively.
After the break-up saga Don Jazzy enlists the service of old crew in person of Wande Coal, Dr Sid, D’Prince and later recruit the services of then rising female pop star and extraordinary vocalist Tiwa Savage into the Mavin‘s crew. ” I see Mavin Records being the power house of music in Africa in shortest possible time ”, saying this statement was Don Jazzy on 7th of May, 2012, when announcing the label on Twitter.
The label goes far as releasing their debut album ” Solar Plexus ” which received mixed reaction from music critics but launched them into market, the further announce the signing of fresh talent such as Korede Bello, Reekado Banks and Di’ja, while their joint collaboration strategy works wonder for them because ” Dorobucci ” and ” Ada Obi ” becomes huge success and the rest is story today with newly signed of Poe, Johhy Drille and DNA music group.
While D’banj‘s ” DB Records ”, on the other hand is still not so good or can simply describe as a label still living in its shadow. After the Mo ‘Hits Records break-up issue, D’banj founded a new label and further signed himself alongside his younger brother Kay-Switch, then budding producer Jay Sleek, J Sol and Dee Vee as the in-house producer.
The label goes far as releasing a compilation album on June, 24th, 2013 titled ” D’Kings Men ”, the album produced eleven singles such as Oliver Twist, Oyato, Sister Caro, Top of the Word, Finally, Don’t Tell Me Nonsense and others, with guest appearances from rap mogul Kanye West and Snop Lion, alongside with American rap star Big Sean, Fally Ipupa, Olamide and others. Upon it releases, D’Kings Men received mixed reviews from music critics. Many critics felt that the album failed to live up to the extensive publicity and recognition it gained. Moreover, critics complained about the album’s rodomontading lyrics and derivative sound.
After two years of outing, D’banj officially announced artistes under the label imprint includes himself, younger brother Kay-Switch, 2kriss brothers — Moss Kriss and Ralph Kriss, Nollywood actress turned singer Tonto Dikeh and Dee Vee as the in-house-producer.
The journey of DB Records started to fade-off in music business with signing of Tonto Dikeh, which shows the label lack of clear direction of what they want because signing of Tonto Dikeh is as disaster for a creative music company.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”2481Z” via=”no” ]Five Years Down the Lane, D\’banj\’s DB Records Still Lives in its Shadow [/ctt]
Under the label D’banj started to releasing not so good songs that belittle his standard and also exposed his creative ability for song writing, while his younger brother Kay-Switch gradually begins to lives in his old glory success with Mo’Hits Records. He move from next big artiste to started sounding like upcoming artiste, the company in-house-producer Dee Vee contract got expired without renewal and lastly what I can say of that 2kriss bothers was that they need platform to showcase their creativity and they got it but they missed it on the road to stardom.
Five years down the lane D’banj’s ” DB Records ” still lives in it shadow and they are not ready to pick up or face the reality of their existence in music industry. The company needs to undergo proper restructure process from the angle of what the label stands for, they should move away from the laptop or owner house office to a proper music power house company.
The label owner had all the distribution resource channel to sell or market their product with their parental sister company MCOMM Ltd (Median Mobile Communications Limited, A Value Added Service Content Provider) and D’ Kings Men Media Limited (a 360 Media Company), but they need to work on the content product itself that we welcome by the consumers than what we are used to see from them — What I mean is that they should work more on the creative part of content they are producing out to the public, they should also invest more on new fresh talent that are ready to take the world at a storm.
His The C.R.E.AM Platform might be the winning strategy for him by employing the service of unbiased A&R’s to selected brightest and the next rated artistes that might compete with fellow creative individuals in this crowded music industry, because the platform is creative talent people who was set up to help discover young creative minds across Nigeria by just dialing a USSD code on a mobile phone.
Kokomaster is successful artiste and in the book of history his name will never be forgotten, but he need transfer his creative genius and business mindset into the new set of generation upcoming stars that sees him as their role model or mentor by settling up good structure for his DB Records company.