Arojah Unveils Multi-million Naira Studio in Lagos
Mary Ekah
A multi-million naira recording workshop, Arojah Audio Visual Digital Studio, was recently unveiled in Lagos. The studio, according to its initiator, Apostle Rev. Samson Albert popularly called Arojah, apart from being highly commercial, is also established to encourage extremely talented artistes, especially in gospel music by recording their works for free of charge.
Located on Agboyi Road, Alapere, Ketu, Lagos, Albert who is also the Primate and Spiritual Head of St. Peters Cherubim and Seraphim Band, Alapere, said the studio is a personal project and has nothing to do with the church. “It is a personal project and that is why I called it Arojah Studio, the church has nothing to do with it. It is commercial and it is opened to all genres of songs.
Surprisingly, the studio, the clergy said was opened to all genres of music, including artistes who are Muslims, adding however that, “We are not producing these songs but we are only recording them for the artistes. There is a wide difference between producing and recording. You can only vet a song when you produce it but when it is just to record a song for an artist, you have nothing to do with what he has cone to record in the studio. But if I want to produce someone’ work, I will definitely vet his/her limits in such a way that whatever art work I produce must be capable of impacting positively on the society at large. I won’t just produce anyone just for the money. If you do not have a message that would influence the public positively, I will not get involved but will be completely involved to ensure that the lyric is capable of impacting positively on the society with a positive message for the youths and the nation at large,” the cleric noted further.
Speaking on what in the first place informed his decision to come up with a recording studio, he said, “First I composed a lot of songs and I love songs so much but considering my position as a spiritual head of a church, I do not have the time to be going out here and there to record because I might be busy to even go there so I said it to myself, why don’t I just put up a recording studio within my reach. After establishing one, which turned out to be state-of-the-art studio, with an engineer and managing mounting it, I felt that I cannot just keep this capital intensive studio just to myself and so I decided to make it commercial where other artistes can also come and do the recording of their work.”
Albert who on the same day also launched the volume 2 of his ‘Arojah Hymnal’, spoke on the target audience for the hymnal. “The hymnal is like when God gives someone the inspiration to write the Bible. So just like the Bible, God gave me the inspiration to compose the hymns and I am proud of them because they are so inspiring and are meant for everyone who is spiritually oriented and deep.