Category: Entertainment

2Baba’s biggest song, ‘African Queen,’ and Danfo Drivers’ hit debut, ‘Danfo Driver,’ remain the Afrobeats debut an original soundtrack for a Hollywood movie but not many knew the role played by filmmaker, Nnegest Likke.

The songs were adopted as theme songs for ‘Phat Girlz,’ a comedy film that narrates the story of two obese women who met the men – Nigerians – of their dreams in the most unexpected way.

In a recent chat, Likke, who doubles as the film’s director and brain behind the screenplay, explained how she, alongside former Nigerian boxer and Olympian, Moses ‘Eagle’ James, scored the iconic film that was made 20 years ago.

In her words, Likke narrated how she knew from the start that she wanted ‘Danfo Driver,’ the popular song of Danfo Drivers duo – Mountain Black and Mad Melon. She said: “So after the film was in the can and the editing was done, it was time to score the movie and for me to select the songs and music I wanted for each scene. Beside me, giving his cultural and creative input was my associate producer and story consultant, Moses “Eagle” James, a Nigerian former World Boxing Champion and Olympian. So Moses was helping me go through possible music for the soundtrack to find the best Afrobeats songs to match certain scenes. I knew from the start that I wanted to use Danfo Drivers music in the movie so I called the number on the back of their CD and reached their manager named Cornerstone.

“I told him who I was and that   I  wanted to use the ‘Danfo Driver’ song in my movie. It was a simple and straightforward business transaction. We agreed on the fee and signed an agreement. I was so excited to have their music in the movie and knew it would elevate the scene I was using the Danfo Driver song for which was the limousine scene when they are all riding in the luxury limo from the hotel to the big Nigerian convention.”

Continuing, Likke narrated how a very long yet productive check on MySpace yielded a search on the iconic romantic Afrobeats song, ‘African Queen.’

In her words: “So with the movie being a romantic comedy, I also needed to find a beautiful African love song to play over the love scenes. But all the Afrobeats songs I knew were fast songs. I didn’t know if there were any Afrobeats love songs. So me and Moses began searching the internet. At the time, that was only Myspace and people’s personal music websites. There was no YouTube or social media platforms because that was in 2005. Well I was searching Myspace for weeks with no luck. But I kept searching because I said there must be at least one romantic Nigerian song out there even if it’s an old song. I said God, help me find a song and He answered my prayer for real. As I was going through song after song, finally, I stumbled across one that from the first few notes caught my attention. You know those first few iconic notes of the African Queen, I can hear the melody in my head. I was like oh my God, this is the song! It was love at first sound. After listening to the whole track, it was confirmed, this is the song. Moses and myself agreed it was perfect. When my editor laid it on top of the movie for us to see how it felt, I was literally trembling with excitement because the song was so perfect for the romantic scenes. I said, oh my God, I must have this music in my movie.

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“So, I called up my Second Unit Director in Nigeria, that’s the filmmaker, TV producer and founder of Zuri24 Media, Mr. Femi Odugbemi, who is another person I could not have made this film without. I said, “Mr. Femi, I heard this song called ‘African Queen’ by some artist named 2Face and I need to have this song in my movie as the theme song. It’s the perfect love song. This song was made for my film. How can I get it? He said, “Oh that song is very popular here in Nigeria, it’s a good song for the movie if you can get it.”  He said he would find a number for the artist and call me back. Five minutes later, he called me back with a phone number and said it was the singer’s direct number.

“So I called the number and 2Face answered. I told him I’m a filmmaker from Hollywood and I heard his song ‘African Queen’ and I wanted to use it in my movie. I was naively expecting him to be as thrilled and happy as I was and just say, okay cool, yes, you can use it but 2Face was politely like, “Oh no, sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You have to talk to my manager. He’s in the US now.”  So he gave me his manager’s number, who at that time was Kenny Ogungbe.

Well let’s just say that after a series of back and forth, suspenseful negotiations, we were able to strike a deal and I got ‘African Queen’ as the soundtrack.”

Likke further narrated how the success of the film further catapulted 2Baba’s success in the US saying, “After the movie came out, that song exploded in America. Not just with African-Americans, but with all other races. Even white kids were singing it. The children of our head producer, Bobby Newmyer – a Jewish man and the same producer of Denzel Washington’s Oscar-winning movie “Training Day” – were always playing ‘African Queen’ on their iPods saying it was their favorite song ever. Everyone was playing it and it was so funny to hear white people singing, “You are my African queen.” So that’s the story of how ‘African Queen’ and also Danfo Drivers’ song found their way into a Hollywood movie soundtrack and ushered Afrobeats onto the global stage, exposing it to a whole new audience of billions worldwide.

The film director, who still remains ecstatic about the production, also revealed how Moses ‘Eagle’ James also inspired and facilitated the filming of a real Isoko convention that was held in America.

She said “Moses is an Isoko boy from Delta State. And I mention that because in the movie there’s a scene where the three Nigerian doctor characters, Dr. Tunde, Dr. Akibo and Dr. Godwin, took the phat girlz to a big fancy Nigerian party convention and it’s an Isoko Convention. The reason it’s an Isoko convention in the film is because that was a real convention going on at the time in real life and the Isoko Association of North America allowed us to film scenes for our movie at their actual convention. It was such a grand gesture, allowing our production to virtually take over their convention because shooting a movie interrupted their program yet they were so kind and generous to allow us film.”