Kenny Saint Best is a leading gospel singer and a major player in the entertainment industry. In this interview with INNOCENT DURU, she speaks about her career; how she ventured into music and how Kennis Music, which manages artistes, produces and promotes music, was birthed as well as her political aspiration. Excerpts:
YOU have been in the music for close to two decades, how would you describe the journey so far?
Wow! It has been revolutionary, full of innovation, paradigm shifting, aligning yourself with new developments, upgrading my style, upgrading my delivery of songs, upgrading, adapting the music and getting to work with younger producers and getting to understand and using the language of young people. So it has been very revolutionary. It is been like a 360-degree complete circle change for me every time. To God be the glory that I am still relevant in music because it is not everybody that started the same time with me that can still do today’s music. So it has been a roller coaster journey. It has been full of ups, full of downs, full of revelations, full of innovation, rebranding, repositioning and so on. There are too many words to describe how the journey has been for me because I have not just been an artiste, I have also been discovering artistes.
Myself and my team in Kennis Music always have been involved in discovering, developing young talents and grooming them to become global brands. It has been rewarding, developmental and a success, especially now that the Nigerian government could say that in 2014, the revenue of the country’s GDP rose to become the best in Africa partly because of the contribution of the entertainment industry.
Your family has been a force to reckon with in the entertainment industry in the country. How did it begin?
It began with me when in 1997/98, my journey into music professionally actually began. The first Kennis Music concert we had was in April 1998. Then we had another one in December of the same year. But all the attempt then was to project a new Nigerian thing because as at then, there was no industry. There were no marketing companies for the kind of music that I was going to be doing. There were few radio and television stations then. We only had Raypower, Radio Nigeria and Rhythm as radio stations and NTA and AIT as the only television stations. In the beginning, the concentration of the energy was to project me.
We weren’t looking at the industry, it was just that we needed to market a product and this product, my brothers then were only doing promotion. They were promoting a lot of artistes; they were the ones that pushed Femi Kuti out there when he released his first album. They did the same to the likes of Lagbaja and several others because of the Grammy awards they were going for. Keke and D1 had the opportunity to mingle with the entertainment industry outside Nigeria. It was the fun, while it was also the job until I came on the scene and they started promoting me. They went round to see who could market me but they couldn’t see because the companies were winding up and the ones that were there were only selling indigenous songs and sounds and the sound that I was bringing was different.
That was how we decided to float our record company. I told my brothers that I could do it and we floated it and it started with me. The hype I was enjoying could have made 10 people superstars; so I had to reach out to my friends who are into gospel music like Kingley Ike and Kunle Ajayi of the Redeemed Christian Church of God so that they could come and be part of the hype and that was how it started and people started keying into it. It was like an experiment that eventually became a successful one.
We later started including the secular artistes because we were starting a revolution in the entertainment industry. After that, we began the Easter Fiesta to promote me and because my brothers couldn’t be doing the MC, they started including comedians and as the music industry was growing, the comedy industry was also growing.
What were you doing before you ventured into music?
I was living in the UK and I had just finished my Master’s degree from the University of Benin when I went to the UK. While I was working, the Lord called me to work for Him. Then it wasn’t a music ministry, it was a prayer ministry. That took me on a mission to the UK. When I was done with that, I felt like I needed a job and God said He had a job which He needed somebody to do and I said whichever job He wanted me to do, I would do it since He called me. It was like going into partnership and I knew that He would sort me out because He doesn’t owe anyone. It was an adventure for me working for somebody was supreme and I was ready to go to any direction He wanted me to go. When He sent me to the UK, it was the day of the Holy Ghost Festival in London. Pastor Adeboye and other ministers were going to minister there.
I didn’t have the pull to go to the UK then but when He asked me to go, I went. When I got there, the Spirit of God ministered to me to write my name and drop it in the offering basket with the assurance that the organisers would reach me. I wrote on the note that I was on a mission and that God said I should do this and I am just obeying. This is my number, call me. Truly, the pastor in charge called me and that was how I started working with that ministry. I told them that God sent the missionaries to Africa and I am a product of what the missionaries had done and He was exporting me to also now be a missionary in the UK. When I got to the UK, I l found out that Christianity had gone down. Most of the churches that were booming there are Nigerian churches.
I was one of the people that were sent to go and wet the ground for the revival of the upsurge of Pentecostal moment in the UK. When I finished my work, the Lord said well done good girl but before you go, I will give you a gift of music and that was how He gave me the gift. I didn’t realise it until each time I was in His presence observing quiet time. He told me to always write down all that was coming to my mind but I thought they were poems until He asked me to go and check my diary and gave me the composition. I called Baba Keke immediately telling him that I was coming back home to start music. He was highly elated and asked me to do him a favour by doing two recorded songs in the UK.
I didn’t have money but I got a niece and went into the studio to do the recording and came back to Nigeria thereafter. When I came, he checked it and saw that I could actually sing but he told me that what I recorded was not for the Nigerian market and we started again. It was when we finished the recording that we were looking for who would market it. To our chagrin, an end had come to Sony Music, Premier Music was closing down and we said, what do we do? I told him I could start a record company because God told me that I was coming to back to Nigeria to export music. I didn’t’ know that I was in the picture, that I was coming to start a company that would be developing young people.
You are a youth pastor in your church but your critics have always said that your trendy look is worldly. What is your take on this?
I will say all of us are worldly because we are still in the world; we are only not of the world. We are all living in a secular life. Even when you are in the presence of God, you are not the Spirit, it is the Spirit of God that mingles with the spirit within you and the word of God that you bring to bear that you use as your tools. I am just trendy and each time I don’t appear trendy, God frowns at me saying the kind of people I am sending you to, this look you have cannot pull them into the kingdom. He told me that ‘If I want to pull in people that do not wear ear rings, people that will not wear trousers, people that will not look trendy, I already have people doing that work, but you, your field, your harvest, they are trendy; they are stylish, they are up and mobile people; they are in the entertainment industry; they are on the street, they are even sex workers. So you have to appeal to them.
‘They have to look at you and say, I see you in me. This would make them to release themselves for your counselling because they will feel that if this one serves God, they will also want to serve God’. To some, their sacrifice in the service of God requires that they should not wear ear rings, trousers and all that but you don’t know what I am laying down as a sacrifice. What He is demanding me to lay down as a sacrifice may not be what He is demanding you to lay down as a sacrifice. For you, it might be that by 5am, you have to carry megaphone, go to the bus stop and preach.
And if He says look trendy, be in your best suit but if you now decide not to be in your best suit, then you are doing the job half way and that is disobedience. I am for young people and God loves young people, He does not want young people to perish. He does not want them to say because of doctrine, they do not deserve the blessings of God. It is evil for people to just look and then judge. Of course, they do judge me but it does not do anything to me.
At what point of your life did you decide to go into politics?
If being in politics is a call to service, then I will say I have been in politics long ago going by all that I have been telling you since. Being in politics is a bad way to look at being in public service or being a public servant. But because people look at the corruption and the embezzlement and how people play one another, they call it politics. But for me, it is to render service to humanity for their development, for their upgrade, for the goodness that God has made available for them and all we need to do is to share and disburse them.
Mentally and spiritually, I have been in politics for long. All along in private practice, I have been rendering services in the area of discovering, grooming and developing young people. Now, this has outgrown me. It has grown bigger and asking for a bigger platform for me to continue to perform. Private practice has made us to make the entertainment industry robust. Now, because the large number of talents that the country is churning out because of the success of the entertainment industry, we cannot use our personal money anymore. It has made us to see that there is a wide gap between the government and the people, the young ones in particular. I feel that I can bridge the gap.
I have been working with the Lagos State government and somehow, I have a relationship with people at both the state and the local government levels. If God told me several years ago to come back to Nigeria because I will be exporting talents, you will see that there is a link in all that I am doing and it is God that sent me. Even this political ambition is from God. It is time for us to get the government to connect with the youths. The ambition matured last year but before then, I had worked with Mrs Oluremi Tinubu when she was the first lady of Lagos State. I have also been working with Mrs Abimbola Fashola since the inception of her office as the first lady.
I have also been working to some extent with the deputy governor on issues that pertain to women. I also worked with the chairman of Onigbongbo local government, which is my immediate constituency when he was trying to bridge the gap between the private and the public schools. It was me that they used for fund raising and as the face of the exercise. When I told the people in power that I want to come into the mainstream of politics, they were happy and they embraced me. Honourable Abike Dabiri was the first to say, Kenny, I am glad that you have come into the scene. I worked with ACN but officially, I became a card carrying member of the APC this year but, I will say that I started last year.
Apart from you, so many others in the entertainment industry are also delving into politics. Is it a bandwagon thing or is it a as a result of not making sufficient money from the industry and the urgent need to augment the little that is coming in?
It would be unfair to say that. We have leadership qualities that we have been offering the public through the entertainment industry. There is more to what we can do. Personally, I think it is not true. For me, it is a calling to youth development, it is a calling for me as a woman who has excelled in the entertainment industry to move to the position of leadership to pull others to foster more development in our industry. I am sick and tired of hearing that we have the leaders that we deserve. You just cannot sit down and be complaining, it is democracy and we don’t need to go to military school to go and learn how to carry gun to be in government. It is open to all. It is another calling entirely for some of us who have been there. Look at RMD, he has done well in Delta State. Also watch out for Fibresima, the Actors Guild president, she is doing well and will go places. It is that desire to serve mankind that pulls you to aspire for a bigger platform to serve the people.
We have so many things we want to do in the industry but because of financial challenges, we could not do it. The government has the money to make this dream come through and that is why we have to be with them in order to convince them to release the money and because they trust that we know our industry better, they would be able to release the money for us to make the industry better.
Involvement in politics is quite demanding. What will you not sacrifice to be relevant in politics?
What I will not sacrifice is my body, my faith and I will not go fetish. Those are the things that I will not do. I will not compromise my personality. I believe in hard work. I believe that if God has not put you there, don’t force yourself there. For the purpose of promoting youth development, promoting the entertainment industry and making more women to be in politics and key places to help young women, I will be very willing to give my best. I will always not keep quiet in matters that require the leaders to be accountable and responsive to the needs of the people.
You have been expressing so much concern about the growing number of commercial sex workers in your recent interviews, but the belief out there is that the world of showbiz makes their activities to thrive. Simply put, they go hand in hand. What is your position about this?
Ah! (laughter). That is fallacy and blackmail on the entertainment industry. It breaks my heart to call them prostitutes. You can blame the shaking of buttocks and indecent dressing on the industry because the industry is over sexualised and we need to purge it and separate the real content from selling bad behaviour. That is part of the work I intend to do when I become a parliamentarian. That brings us back to the neglect of the youth in Nigeria.
My brother, the youth ministry in Nigeria at all levels does not stand on its own. At the federal level, it is attached to sports. At the state level, it is either attached to women ministry or to sports again. You will find out that 75 percent of the activities that happen in those ministries are about sporting activities. The problem is that Nigeria of today has a very large percentage of the population as youths, unfortunately this huge part of the population does not have a ministry or a parastatal attending to the needs of the youth to know their challenges and their aspirations. How do you now blame the spread of prostitution on the entertainment industry that is growing the GDP? It is the sheer neglect of the youths by the government that is responsible for this and that is responsible for my pull to come and serve.
We can create an agency for these ladies and make them useful. When we have the youth ministry, you will see what we can do with our youths because the budget will be able to meet their demands. China invested in their youths and that is why they are the toast of the whole world today. The government has not invested in the Nigerian youths, that is why they see us as militants, insurgents, kidnappers and prostitutes. I am not making excuses for them but if we don’t do something now, it will be very bad in the future. One day, you will be driving down and will want to carry somebody only to find that your niece who told you good night is on the street as a sex worker! May it not happen. I think Ikeja has the highest number of commercial sex workers at night and on a weekly basis, they have over 2,500 girls on the street of Ikeja every night and it is growing.
You are a beautiful woman and men hardly take their eyes off beautiful people like you. Now that you are going into politics, they will be breathing down your neck…
(Cuts) whose neck? I don’t have the neck (laughter). I take what you said to be a compliment. When some people see me, they will say you are more beautiful than you appear in video. I spend money on this body, therefore if you don’t give me that compliment, it means my money is not working and that will mean sacking my beautician (laughter).
Thank you very much but do you know what actually attracts people to me? When I speak, you will get raptured. You experience me when I talk, the words I speak linger in your memory and you get nurtured by them. When this happens you get endeared to me but not to the point of touching me. People like to be around me just because of wisdom sake. I am not a typical woman out there and I give God the glory that my tongue is laced with grace. I make everybody that has an encounter with me to feel good and loved. Even though they are endeared to my personal charm, they just love me and hug me and say, KSB, you are a blessing and so they don’t want to defile me. They don’t breathe over my neck, they love me and appreciate me.
They even want to invest in me because they believe that there is more to me than being just here. They feel I should be up there touching lives. Even when I open a bit of my skin, you don’t see y skin, it is another person who is even more beautiful that you will see and you will just want to stay close in touch with me. Since I began my political journey, not even a single man has said to me KSB how far?
