The Sweet, Sour Taste Vibes of Headies 2015
The Jimmy Jatt l know
Someone in the industry who knew how close I was to Jimmy sent me a link and said Jimmy Jatt had blasted the organisers of The Headies, Don Jazzy and Olamide. Somehow, I didn’t believe Jimmy wrote that letter. I told the person that Jimmy does not and will never walk himself into any form of strife, but I went ahead and read the letter. I called my friend back and I said point blank, Jimmy will never write such a letter, someone is trying to impersonate him; someone is trying to brew trouble. Please ignore that letter, I appealed. Immediately, I started trying to reach Jimmy, he would not pick, I sent him a text too, but I finally got him on the phone to explain some things to me since he was the Jury President of The Headies award. I didn’t want to bother Ayo Animashaun because I was sure I would contact him the next day, he sounded stressed and has even lost his voice. Sincerely, I felt sorry for him too because I know I also added to his stress because of my nagging request for invites.
Even if I don’t want to believe any explanation from A yo A ni ma shaun, the organ is er of the He a dies award, at least I know I cannot doubt Jimmy; I practically grew up with Jimmy. I’ve known him all my life as a teenager. His wife Jennifer and I were childhood friends but we were in different schools. We were not on the same street, but we observed the happenings in the streets. The street was busy and forever interesting and active; the street was like a movie scene, everyday something interesting happened. We knew ourselves in the Obalende axis, I didn’t live in Obalende, but I was there every day. Something about Obalende interested me so much and more so, I had many classmates who lived at Obalende and even at Moloney, Sangross, Okesuna but Odo street was where Jimmy had his studio. I told him I wanted to be a female DJ, so whenever Jennifer and I visited him after school hours, he took his time and taught me what to do on the turntable; he started teaching me and, there were weekends I followed him out to gigs. Sometimes, it was even beach parties as far a sT a kw a Bay then. His relationship with my friend turned from platonic to real romantic affair after we left secondary school and we were seeking admission into the university. Jennifer was very homely and all she wanted to do was to take care of Jimmy.
All this while, Jimmy Jatt acted like a father figure to us. He was kind and extremely gentle.And one obvious trait in his person is zero tolerance for injustice, he never compromises on injustice. If he couldn’t do anything about what he disliked, he would rather walk away and you would never see him there again. He is very principled. And he knows that Jennifer’s friendship with me was so sisterly that if I saw him then just having a gist with another lady, I’d just cunningly walk up to him and start acting like we were dating. I would stare so hard at the girl and give her that ‘Gerrarra here mehn’ face.At a point, people thought he was dating me and his wife. Odo street in Obalende was agog every evening, especially because of Jimmy’s studio, and sometimes when we were hungry, he gave us money to go and eat at the popular Iya Modinat’s buka on Eleshin street. Modinat, who was named after the buka was in my class then, we were friends and I made sure I visited whenever she was there because of the ‘jara’ (extras) she added to my bowl of rice. What made Jimmy Jatt stand out in the crowd then was his love for justice.
The street is where you have the good, the bad and the ugly. The common belief about the street was nothing good comes out of children who grew up in the streets. Thank God we now know that is a big lie because some of the guys who were my classmates who also grew up in the Obalende axis are medical doctors, pharmacists and lawyers abroad. And even here, one of them I know presently who was my classmate is an engineer with Exxon Mobil and doing so well, he also grew up at Obalende, around Ije area. And there was another one who was close to me, we chatted a lot after school hours, especially when I didn’t see him in school, he would complain, “I taya jare, I never do my assignment and I no want that yeye Maths teacher to whip me cane, that’s why I no come school.” But if there was any street fighthewouldbethefirsttojumpoutevenwithout knowing what the problem was. As soon as he recognised you as a friend, his shirt was off, the next thing would be to start looking for a bottle to break on your attackers’ head. He didn’t even live in Obalende but he came around because he had friends there. Later I heard he never went back to school, he lost his life when he relocated to his state, the police raided some kidnappers nest, he joined the militants, I even heard he belonged to a kidnap group. I knew him, it was so sad he ended up that way, I cried because he was a friend. I am trying say that it is high time people stopped looking down on people who emerge from the streets. Even in the streets, there are a lot of people who have their heads screwed up.
I was going to be a DJ; I said to myself that if I tried JAMBagainortrytoenrollintoanyinstitutioneven for a diploma course and I don’t get the admission, I would go fully into music, and write songs too because I wrote a lot of poems then that I could turn into songs. I also wrote short stories. I used to tell Jimmy Jatt everything, he was always supportive of my ideas, I was a chatter box, and he was the patient listener. It was on that same street that we alsoorganisedagangfightwheneverweheardthat a girl was dating a friend’s boyfriend. Sometimes about six of us, all girls would go looking for the intruder and warn her vehemently to stay away from our friend’s boyfriend.And if she’s rude, she might receive some slaps. And whenever Jimmy got to hear of this incident, he would scold us, even ifheknewwewerestandingforasisterandafriend. For days, he wouldn’t even chat with us to express his disappointment. And he kept saying, “What kind of women do you girls want to end up as, area girls or what? You can be different from what is happening in this neighbourhood and quickly, I would reply, “Well we are sorry, but that girl needs to stop dating Dupe’s boyfriend (fictitious name) and I added, “Jimmy just go and warn her to stay away or else the beatings will increase o”, I was the bold and articulate one.
Jimmy Jatt was the peace maker, he was loved by everybody. He is that kind of man that will sense trouble from afar and warn everybody. He was protective of his people. He ruled but not in a violent way, he never believed in all those street lawsorstreetfights, itwasneverhisstyle. Healways believed that dialogue is the best solution to any problem.
Isayallthisbecauseldon’tknowwhoelsewould be more credible to head the Headie’s jury. I am not saying there is no one out there but I know this man called Jimmy Jatt.
Ayo Animashaun’s side of the story
First of all, I asked him why he chose January 1st as his date, didn’t he know it wasAli Baba’s date for his event? He replied me, “What is your business in that? Ali Baba and I have spoken, so mind your business.” I let that slide. Now, when I attackedAyo Animashaun about his 2015 nominations, why was the list altered, because Ubi Franklin tweeted about Inyanya’s nomination, and quickly they changed something. Ayo and Jimmy explained to me that Iyanya was actually nominated but the wrong song was typed and it had to be corrected.
IknewAyotoanextent,whenhewasapracticing journalist before he started his awards. He is a friend that l’m proud of, though we fight every now and then. And I asked him severally, that l heard he has started collecting money from artistes to give awards. The first day, he was angry and shouted at me, wondering why I would believe such. This banter was when Skuki worn the Next Rated, and I didn’t think they had any song to emerge the winner in that category. And he told me that they won by public votes.
Now in 2015, another controversial winner Reekado Banks has emerged again. This time around,Ayocalledme,andIsaidhowcanReekado Banks, who does not have a biting hit song, win the Next Rated? “Ayoooooooooooo, don’t soil your name or the legacy you are trying to build.” I screamed at him. He had lost his voice, he was tired and obviously stressed out. I felt so sorry for him but didn’t show it. He managed to explain to me, I listened to him but still wanted to hear from Jimmy Jatt.And I also needed to know why Phyno did not get any nominations too.
Where Trouble Started to Loom
This Headies’ award rivalry between the Mavins and the YBNL gang began at the 2014 edition of the show when Reekado Banks and Lil Kesh slugged it out for the Rookie of the Year category. I was rooting for Lil Kesh but Reekado Banks clinched it and the crowd went berserk. Olamide hit the stage in his street attitude with a disposable cup of whatever in his hand, registered his displeasure and announced Lil Kesh as the Rookie of the Year, then he vamoosed in obvious angst. But because he wasn’t profane in his use of words and nowhere near this year’s affront, the audience didn’t mind much.
Between Olamide and Dagrin
He left I.D. Cabasa’s Coded Tunes record label and followed 9ice’s former-wife, Toni Payne who managed him for a while before they fell out. Olamide was on his own and was not ready to leave the ship of his career to anybody to steer. Late 2012, sometime in October, precisely, was the first time I met Olamide and it was my first and last encounter with him till date. He snaked his way through the Apapa gridlock to my office to be interviewed by Lanre Odukoya. He was introduced tome. Bad do as many now call him was extremely humble and I told him I liked his music even if I didn’t understand some of what he says and that he should keep working hard, ‘you will get there my brother’. He replied ‘Thank you ma’ and genuflected like a well-mannered-Yoruba boy. I watched him from my desk as Lanre interviewed him. He spoke well, and he was determined to ‘blow’, as they say. He wanted to be a super star; you could feel his struggles from the way he spoke. He was now to face his battles and struggles in the industry alone. When he left and Lanre and I talked about his music and Dagrin’s, Lanre was so impressed with his humble nature. I remember telling him that most street artistes don’t know how to handle fame, let’s watch Olamide first. Fortunately, Lanre and I were together at The He a dies when Ola mi de’ s arrogance got to a boiling point and out of control. He was shell- shocked, I looked at him and laughed. Thoughts raced inside me, “I no tell you sey you no fit place your bet on these guys?” I didn’t want to dampen him, so, I bellied the thought.
Da grin was getting to the peak of his career before he died and I wondered if Dagrin would have been this unruly. If Dagrin was still alive would