Sola Dada has said that it takes much more than having a good song to make it in music.
The singer, who has one album to her name and is currently promoting her latest song, ‘Ragabomi’, explained that this is why she is leveraging on her personal brand as a person to promote her music.
“The artiste must be a solid brand in the public’s consciousness. This is what I am putting all my energy into right now; working on my personal brand,” Sola, who agrees that competition is good for the Nigerian music industry, said.
She credits what she calls the great advancement in Nigerian music in the last decade to competition.
“This, of course, may make breaking into the scene a daunting task for new-comers and upwardly mobile artistes,” Sola, who released a six-track debut in 2005 titled Redeemer Come, explained.
Explaining further the album which was on the label of Nova Promotions, she said the title song, ‘Redeemer Come’, was written as a prayer for Nigeria and was produced in two different styles: reggae and R&B.
“Of all the songs on the album, the track ‘Fall in Love’, produced by Jeremiah Gyang, has enjoyed the most success. Although a song belonging to the gospel genre, ‘Fall in Love’ became a cross-over hit, playing regularly on radio and TV even till today. Other favourite tracks from that album include ‘Iya’ (Mother), written and produced by Diran Olajoyegbe, and ‘Breaking My Heart’, produced by Cobhams Asuquo.
“In 2009, I put together a couple of tracks produced by TY Mix and released them across radio stations and online. One of the songs was a remix of ‘Fall in Love’, and another titled ‘In Love With You’. Shortly after, I worked on a couple more tracks titled ‘Little Things’ and ‘Are You Ready’, produced by gospel artiste-cum-producer, Nosa Omoregie. These all were strictly online releases and can be found on my soundcloud artiste page,” she said.
Sola’s current single, ‘Ragabomi’, is one among the songs that will make up her next album to be released soon.
The singer, who graduated from the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) has an eclectic taste in music.
“Anything from fuji, juju, afro and highlife to Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, country, rock and funk; good music is good music to me. What I singularly look out for in my musical choices is authenticity. An authentic, original voice is a winner any day with me,” she stated.
It is her belief that although the music industry has gone through an economic and social boom in the last few years, it has favoured a narrow selection of genres like Afro pop and Afro hip hop.
“It has been somewhat challenging for other genres of music to flourish. For this reason, many who are perhaps gifted in these other (less popular) genres change their styles to hip hop, so that they can sell. This is sad. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what the solution to this should be. All I can say is, if more artistes would just believe in their art and stick to it, they would come to own theirs in the industry and make a success of themselves,” she added.
Sola’s new single, ‘Ragabomi’ is produced by Netto of Cisum Productions, and the video was directed by award-winning music director, Akin Alabi.