Salau Olayiwola Women are Blessings, Not Distraction

Salau Aliu Olayiwola aka Testimony (Mr. JAGA) is a gospel minister and artiste with good aces up his sleeves. With hit tracks, Jehovah, Igara and Lambano to his name, Mr. JAGA has introduced a stimulating style to gospel music with a compelling blend of F

Wcouldn’t hit big with for obvious reasons. I didn’t really understand Apala music, you know as a young boy coming up Hip hop was it. When I was young and on vacation at my grandparents, I had the privilege of hearing my granddad sing. That was all. He never had any album, you know in those days, they just had a band and went from place to place singing. There was no opportunity to wax an album. On subsequent vacations, my grandma would say I sing like my grandpa whenever I sang. I asked her what kind of music my grandpa sang and she said Apala and I was lost since I didn’t know the kind of music Apala was. At a point however I said to myself that I’ve got to take over from grandpa g p and make it work. I decided to find out about Apala music and listened to Haruna Isola, Ayinla Omowura Omowwura and afterwards made up my mind to explore the genre and take it from wheere where grandpa grandpaa stopped. That is how I began infusing infusingi it into my own music and blend it to what people would like. So yes, my grandfather grandfatherr inspired my kind of music.

Have you at any point beeen been tempted temptedd to go back to secular music?? music?

Yes I had, in 2015. When I le left eft secular music in 2011 it was pretty tough. tou ugh. In 2013, I started going for boxing g and it just seemed things were getting g worse. In 2015, I resolved that if I didn’t didn n’t have the opportunity to sing on the platform of Pastor Chris, being the platform platf form we all look forward to in the ministry, ministry y, just like a music minister in Redeem Redeemed med Church looks forward to sing before beforeb Baba Adeboye, then I was goin going ng to quit and go back. I also at th the he time had the opportunity to tra travel avel to Cuba to further my boxing career. I just wanted to be succ successcessful in anything apart from stea stealing aling or robbing which I couldn’t do o anyway. I was actually very good go ood in boxing.

As God would have it, some sometime etime in 2015, I got a call from Sinach, telling tellingt me they wanted me to open up th the he International Music Conference (IM (IMC). MC). That was how the opportunity op pportunity

came. Ther Thereafter, reafter, I called my Boxing coach and told him that I would not be travelling to Cuba again. From then, my music career took off for good.

Your song “Jehovah” speaks of comfort or blessings you derived from God. Can you recount some of those blessings?

There is an award by the IMC called the LIMA Awards. In our ministry, it’s our own version of the Grammy Awards. In the history of the awards, no music minister has ministered twice but that changed with me. In 2015, I opened the awards concert and along the way, Pastor Chris called on me to come and sing the same song again.In the course of it as I sang, g, Pastor Chris jumped j p up p from his seat. I was glad the song I sang made him do that, which I knew was inspired by the Holy Ghost. I am forever grateful to Pastor Chris

Then in 2016, Evangelist Kathy who happens to be Pastor Chris’ younger sister called and told me the Holy Ghost asked her to train me. So I started being trained by her and while that was going on, her own son, known as Dezman Oyakhilome, who is a major youth influencer in Africa today told me one day that he wanted me to accompany him to a pro-