I didn’t go to US to search for a better life — El Dee

Written by Lolade Sowoolu

Saturday, 09 May 2009

El Dee needs no introduction, especially if you remember the song ‘Shake Body’, ‘Bosi Gbangba’ or ‘Big Boy’. Olanrewaju Dabiri went into hiatus sometime in the early 2000s after his group, The TrybesMen disbanded. His departure to the United States was not in search of the Golden Fleece, he told Showtime, instead it was to satisfy his yearning for more knowledge in his line of passion. In this interview, the trained Architect recounts his experience in the States, why he came back to the country and comments on the love of his life. Enjoy it. You were away in the States for close to six years. What happened in that phase of your life? I gained in experience, learnt a lot of things that had to do with audio production, video production, stage production, broadcasting, film, audio engineering and music media in general. Was all of that done in a formal environment? Actually I could learn all of those things by myself but what I did when I got to America was to go into the industry and work alongside industry people. El Dee So a friend of mine started a company and we were doing multimedia; everything from web development to audio production, voice over, music videos and all kind of stuffs like that. But the good thing was that he was already kind of established in the industry so he was able to do a lot of networking and we got jobs with big companies like CNN, Cartoon Network and a whole lot of others. In the middle of all of that buzz why did you decide to come back? For me a lot of the things I was doing in the US was to develop myself. It wasn’t because I needed money or anything like that. I’m pretty comfortable in Nigeria. I was comfortable before I left Nigeria, I am right now and I was comfortable in America. So its not as if I was in America looking for a better life. El Dee I had a purpose of being in America. My purpose was basically to develop myself to a level where I can apply myself in Nigeria. Before I left I’d reached a point where I felt I had peaked in knowledge. It seemed like there wasn’t much more for me to learn from this environment, so I wanted to go where people are doing this thing (production) at the highest level, and work in that environment with them so I can pick up one or two things from them. How long were you planning to stay? I was thinking to stay for as long as it took for me to learn those things because I figured if people don’t take steps like that to develop themselves, our industry wouldn’t really grow. It’s just like in the beginning when we started, there was really no industry or infrastructure. It’s because a lot of people have taken the steps that I took, that things have changed for the better. Now people are seeing value in doing top-notch production for music videos, audio and everything else related. If we won’t give good stuff that can measure up on the world stage or be on the same platform as the international artiste then we won’t be able to compete internationally. And this had been the challenge for Nigeria all along. There’s always that third world attitude that people have towards Nigerian music and movies. I think the movies too will need to step up a little bit. As for music, we’ve definitely taking it to a level now where it is recognized and accepted outside the shores. So how much of all that knowledge and expertise have you been able to utilize? I’ve started doing stuffs with a lot of people around me. I’ve shown them a lot of things. The big studios that we used to have back in the days with big mixers and all that (psss!) I’m bringing technology to people now which you can set up in your room as you can see right there. With that set up, you can record an album. Its not what it used to be. Technology like that weren’t available years ago. If you see the video for ‘Bosi gbangba’, you’ll see we’re able to step it up. Did you do that yourself? Well I worked with the crew that I work with (in the US). I recorded that before coming back just another statement to say we can make videos look really nice like the videos that these guys (foreign counterparts) are making. Now there’s a challenge for something better. I lived in Atlanta, so I shot it there. What about equipping people in terms of skills? I actually had a meeting today with a broadcasting company that wants me to train their staff with regards to a bunch of new equipment they just ordered. They need someone to put their staff through on how to use these things to maximize productivity. ‘Final Cut studio’ is the world’s standard now as far as videos and Tv broadcasting is concerned. It’s a software with which you can do everything post-production regarding videos. There are very few people who have the knowledge because its still pretty much new. It just came out last year. It can do all 3D related stuff. How expensive is purchasing and using ths software? It’s actually cheaper and that’s the thing. Digital technology makes it cheaper. Is there the temptation of quitting singing for full-time production? At the end of the day, I hope to do this (production) when I stop doing the music. The reason I’m still playing music right now is because it is my first love, my passion and it serves as a medium for me to get out there and showcase the things that I know and the ability that I have. Also it’s (music) the one that I love to do the most. At some point when I retire from singing, I’m going to sit back and do a lot of production for Tv, audio and stage. At what point did you know you were ready to come back to Nigeria and hit the tubes again? It was at the point where I got 17 awards in 2007; twas a whole bunch of different awards from different organizations in the states. They came for a lot of things we’d worked on over the years- from video, web, audio, sound tracks, a particular campaign we did for UPS- UPS paperless shipping campaign. We created an on-line game people could play and basically created more awareness for it. We won a couple more awards for that campaign including ‘Adobe site of the day’. We did TV commercials and music videos as well. At that point I felt like if I’m at this stage where I’m able to get this kind of accolade in this environment, then I need to be contributing to Nigeria rather than contributing to that environment. And that was all it took. Compare the industry at present to what you had in the days of Trybes men? Back then there was no industry, really. It was just a few people trying to pull resources together to get something going. Right now, a lot of those things that we were able to put together has come to fruition and there’s now infrastructure for newer artistes to come out. You know radio stations play your music now; when we were there we had to lobby to get our music to be played. To shoot videos, we had to make-do with using camcorders ourselves. Additionally, now the industry has corporate input that I think is a good avenue to market their products; so a lot more money is coming into the industry now. Those were some of the visions that we had then and we knew that if we kept at it, at some point we would get to this stage. Are there any new challenges being a solo artiste compared with being a group member? It’s almost the same only that I don’t have the other two members with me. I’ve always been a hands-on person, I create beats and hooks. Even when I was in the group I was taking most of the decisions. I owned the record label, studio and did the recording and mixing of our songs. Why did you drop your album on Christmas day? We did the album for Christmas just because the marketer thought it was a good idea. When I think back, I’m not quite sure it was quite a smart idea (laughs). That’s because around that time (Christmas period) distribution networks actually shut down which was what made me think the idea was weird. But then his explanation was that when they (marketers) do come back, they can easily pick it up. In the first month we were able to do 50, 000 (sold copies) which I think is a pretty good number and the marketer is happy enough to give an extra cheque. Why did you get married almost immediately after you returned? It was almost like you returned so you could get married? I could have gotten married anywhere I was. I didn’t have to come back here to get married. I just happened to be in Nigeria at the time we decided to do it. We could have gotten both families to come to America if we’d stayed in America to do it. Was she in America with you? She was there a good part of it. She went to school in Europe and did her masters in Manchester. That was the only time she was away. We had known each other right from University days in UniLag. I was studying Architecture and she was studying Urban Planning. I try to keep her out of public view. So what’s it like being married? It’s the same thing. When you get married to your friend, nothing changes except that you don’t have to drop her at home. She’s been there before Trybesmen so she knows what it takes to be with me.