Hit maker 9ice was recently in London for the 2011 edition of Crack Ya Ribs’

In an interview with Adesope Olajide of Factory 78, the multiple award winner let us in a few things he’s up to, like his forthcoming album and the plans he has for his protege Seriki.

How are you doing my brother?

I’m fine and you

It’s nice to have you here back in the UK after a while and you’ve been going round the world. Your last album was amazing the singles have been fantastic. You are blessed with hits after hits. How hard or how easy has it been to make the second album even better than the first one.

Well it is more difficult because coming from my own part of the world. If you do one thing people want something better so if you are unable to do it, its like a scar so to deliver people will respect you and adore you for that but the most important thing is to give thanks to God for making it happen and that’s it

The last 12 months has been all sort of stuffs we are happy that all sort rumors and things have been put behind and we can now focus on the music. For you as an entertainer how difficult is it for you to focus on the music when other stuffs are happening behind you?

For me personally, I have two lives there is 9ice the artiste and 9ice Abolore so when things are happening to 9ice the artiste the abolore consoles him.

We are happy for that, the music I’ve always wanted to talk about it the parables you throw out there you say ‘ki won lo bere lowo iya won’ where did you learn those parables and how did you learn them and use them in your song?

Well I will say there are things I grew up with sharing I might not be paying attention to it while I was growing up. When I grew up as an adult I was trying to be creative all those things started flashing back. I can’t speak English like the white or better than the Americans so I decided to speak in my mother’s tongue I listened to while I was growing up and that was it and glory be to God its working for me

I saw you perform on stage and I saw an interview you did. You were talking about where you grew up, Bariga where you talked about your people, the emotions that turn up on your face. Tell me the feeling that you connect with when you think about the people you grew up with…

Well the feeling is mutual because I’m a success today doesn’t mean the whole of bariga gets the survival. I’ve seen thousands of people suffering and we are being blessed. When you come out of the ghetto and God has done something great to you all you need do is give back to the society and I know the government can’t do everything there are still a lot of people millions trying to fend for themselves and they are still going to have bankers from the ghetto, engineers from the ghetto , musicians , architects from the ghetto. So people should look into that ghetto because so many good things will come out of the ghetto.

Now you promised me as a fan that you are bringing home a Grammy how long do you want me to wait for it?

Well it’s the fans that do it for us. For me personally without my fans I won’t be where I am today so let’s just keep supporting 9ice let’s keep supporting Nigerian music and in no time the Grammy will be

Now the next album you have to be working on it now. How far gone are you in the next album and when should we be waiting?

The album is done we are compiling songs together now. We are releasing it December 7th. It was supposed to drop in September, it’s a double album.

One of my favorite songs of yours apart from ‘Gbamu gbamu’, crazy. ‘Loni’ with Dagrin I listened to it on YouTube over and over again like crazy. Tell me about making that song a hit. How it feels for you for making that song with a legend and what the vibe was when you were making the track.

My producer worked on the beat and I listened to it and I told him I like this beat because it’s African and it sounds juju and I told him I should be able to do something with this. When I was done with my own verses and chorus and I thought to myself ‘who can I put on the song that will compliment the song?’. And I thought of Dagrin I called him and he showed up. He spent some hours in the studio and later he came out with something. And people loved it

Finally I saw you perform for the Governor of Lagos Babatunde Raji Fashola. I saw it here live in the UK. What caught me about the performance was that when you started to sing you completely threw everything out of the way and you started to talk to people in the crowd. Is that how you talk during performances and how you inspire your fans when they come out to watch you?

Yes definitely because talking to the crowd makes a lot of sense. Its not just about entertaining them you also need to correlate with them talk to them and make them understand what they are listening to. Most times they listen to songs and they don’t understand what you are saying so through you action, charisma, people get to know what you are saying and they understand.

Thanks you very much 9ice Alapomeji is your record label and you’ve got the boys that you are bringing up. What else can we expect from Alapomeji?

Seriki is coming out with his own album in November. People should look out for that album because it’s going to be crazy, it’s going to be wonderful.