Davido’s father used to order that he be arrested during his early days of making music. But now the story has changed.
The superstar singer recalled this in an interview with Breakfast Club, a radio show on US radio, Power FM.
OBO recalled that he was a college student at the time the Nigerian music industry began to bloom.
“When I was in college, that’s when the Nigerian, African (music) industry became big. Back then, it was 2face, D’banj and Psquare. Those were the three hottest singers back then.
““I went back (to Nigeria) one Christmas, and the artistes were making bread (money), the songs were being played everywhere on the radio. That’s when I fell in love.
“After I fell in love with the music, I bought studio equipment when I came back (to the US). I actually used to record for the Jamaicans in my dorm.Everything changed after I met the Jamaicans.
“As a producer, I used to make demo tracks and I’d shop it to artistes. I had a cousin called Mpizzle. I made a demo track for him but he did not record it. So I dropped it and put some rapper on it, and it became big.”
Davido said he used to sneak into Nigeria to promote his breakout song, “Back When” and to perform it alongside Naeto C.
“Those days, my dad was hearing ‘David is in Nigeria’. At the time, I was not in school for about a year,” he said.
“The song was hot so I started doing club gigs. He found out and all hell broke loose. He started sending police to the shows, arresting the promoters.
“I remember the first show I did… there were 50 policemen. Back then, they arrested my girl, my manager, the show promoter.
“Then the song started getting big, so it was getting harder for my dad to send the police after me. Then at some my point, my dad called me and said ‘let’s have a meeting’, so we met up.”