#ThrowbackInterview IllRymz Steps Into The Spotlight
By Onyinye Muomah
As a young boy, IllRymz aka Illy wanted to go into music. While he was still in secondary school at King’s College, Lagos, he would often rap with his friends around the schoolyard. “They would be going like, ‘Your rhymes are ill!’ So I was just like, you know what, that would make a good nickname- Ill and Ryhmes put together- and that’s how I came up with IllRymz.”
His real name is actually Baridiya Adebola Olowu. He was born 27 years ago to a Persian mother and a Nigerian father from Lagos. “The first time I went to a studio to record a song was eight years ago but back then, music was not viewed as a viable career and I didn’t think my parents would be in support of it beyond being a hobby,” he says.
Soon after leaving secondary school, he decided to go into modelling. He appeared most notably in an advert for Coca-Cola. According to him, he did this for about a year or two before getting a job writing copy for an ad agency where his older brother worked. This led to a job as a content producer at MTech, a company that provides mobile content for brands and businesses.
“I started the first online magazine in Nigeria, Vibe Weekly. It was owned by MTech. At that time, there were not really magazines or entertainment forums online for or by Nigerians except for maybe Nairaland. Vibe Weekly was updated three times a week. I wrote for them for about three years. I was writing and creating mobile content. I stumbled onto TV because I was trying to provide mobile content for a show called Nokia First Chance. During the meeting they asked me to host the show but I said no.”
He later changed his mind and decided to host the show. This jump-started his career as a TV and radio host. He first worked full time as TV host on Nigezie before moving to Soundcity. At Soundcity he also got to work on radio and was soon hosting his own radio show, Radio Out Loud. After leaving Soundcity, he went on to become an independent TV personality, hosting the G-Bam Glo show and then Nigerian Idol on TV. In spite of his success as a radio and TV host he still felt the urge to pursue his “first love” full time.
“My dad kept saying, ‘I have been listening to your music for about eight years now, when are you releasing an album. You have been playing music longer than half of those people out there, why aren’t you doing more?’ I was trying to tell him that it was not the right time because of the kind of music I want to make. But eventually, I took that step. I stopped being a chicken and released my first single, Teacher Teacher featuring Femi Kuti.”
Getting the crown prince of Afro Beat to feature on his single was a feat in itself as prior to this, Femi Kuti had not featured on a track by any contemporary Nigerian artiste. In the intro to the song, Femi talks about how this young man [IllRymz] has been bothering him, asking him to do a song with him. The exasperated tone with which he expresses the intro is no act, IllRymz says. It took some doing to get Femi to record the song and then make himself available for the video. “I guess he gave in [eventually] because he believes in my music,” IllRymz says, then goes on to acknowledge Yeni Kuti, Femi’s sister for her help in getting access to the Afro Beat maestro. “She is a sweetheart.”
To a casual listener, Teacher Teacher is reminiscent of Fela’s Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense. But apart from a sampling the tone of the Fela song and part of the chorus, the two songs bear little resemblance lyrically or otherwise. While Fela criticises the government and colonial mentality, IllRymz talks about actual teachers and extols the virtue in allowing the young to grow and think for themselves. “The song is saying that teachers are meant to be like our guides but they don’t know everything. I was inspired to write those lyrics by my experience at the University of Lagos where I studied Mass Communication. I was already working in broadcasting at that time – I was with Nigezie – and there they were teaching me a whole bunch of archaic stuff. I couldn’t write what was in my head, what I knew from my work experience. I had to download the stuff I saw in textbooks and from my class notes, else I would have failed.”
The song has had some success on the internet where the video has seen over 5,000 views on Youtube however, IllRymz feels he is not getting the airplay he deserves on radio and TV thanks to the corrupt system in Nigeria where artistes have to pay to get their music on air. “As an artiste, I am now seeing a different side of the industry that I never thought existed because I have worked on radio and on TV for many years. I have played videos and songs from literally everybody and I have never once collected a dime but now I am trying to push my music out and people are requesting money from me and I am like, ‘Am I missing something?’”
To say he is sorely disappointed with “the system” and with his peers on radio and TV who engage in such sub-par professional practices would be putting it mildly. “If the music is good and you know it is, then you should play it. You should not demand money. If the music isn’t good, you should not play it. I believe everybody has their own moral standards and integrity to uphold so I will not have that conversation with anybody. All I will do is put the music out there and get the right people to communicate with us. If they feel it’s good, they will play it. If it is not good enough and they don’t play it, then they don’t play it.”
Still he has high hopes for his future in music, “Hopefully in the next two to three years, I would have had at least one, if not two successful albums and a strong followership of people who at least like and appreciate my sound.”