With hits like Wetin Dey, Jargo and a few others to his credit Jesse Garba Galle Abaga, popularly known as Jesse Jagz, says`he is done with his old self, the Jag of All Trades album, moving on to bigger things with the launch of his ‘Jesse Jagz Nation’. In an interview with ADEOYE KEME ARUBAYI, he revealed the reasons behind the split with his former label, Chocolate City and his undying love for his nine-year-old daughter.
WHAT is music to you? It is everything to me. I feel that fans and people who really love artistes should be more interested, there’s no doctor that doesn’t read, when they finish surgery, before they sleep they open their books and read. When I’m done performing and I’m back home, before I sleep I put on my system, whether there’s inspiration or not, I work.
It’s like riding a bicycle, if you stop doing it tomorrow it will die, same if you stop writing, everybody will notice that your rap has changed, we had rappers who were rapping in pure English who are now rapping in pidgin, it’s not that there is an excuse or they want to reach the commercial market, they just got lazy, you shouldn’t have people listening to your music and saying it’s too western, you don’t want to thread that route again.
What was the move to Lagos like at that time?
It was slow at first. A lot of people don’t know this and that’s how they get the wrong image, it was very tedious trying to move to Lagos, being from a different part, having moved from Abuja, it was slow but the move was steady with time. Whenever people say it like MI came first it makes it sound like an Elijah and Jesus story but Ice Prince had come to Lagos to do stuff, to record, to perform on stage, even with Modenine. So I guess it’s because MI’s move was more permanent and he got signed first, he could stay with Djinee and all that. It’s not like we were alien to Lagos.
What was growing up with your brother MI like?
I don’t know what to say, at that time he was my only brother, my little brother hadn’t been born so it was a lot of ‘cat and dog’, survival of the fittest. I am the second child but at the same time it was all love, a lot of respect, loyalty all combined together.
Was there or is there any physical or mental competition between you and MI?
I don’t think there is a mental or physical competition, I think there’s a natural competition, it’s just natural. We don’t even know how it happens. If a lion cub is born before another, the older one has greater chances of survival than the younger one and for the younger one to survive he has to become tougher. It’s natural competition because somebody has to be ahead.
Talking about your music, your first album didn’t get much hype, what happened?
On the level of an MI album I guess you’re very right. Notwithstanding, MI was on his game that time and I didn’t start listening to rap at an early age, I really started when MI came back from the states, before then it was other forms of music; rock or reggae. My first album was a learning process, it was not about the sound or anything so it makes me happy when people say; “we don’t really get your first album”. For me it was still a process of knowing that there is a Lagos market, Abuja market and a Jos market, how do I do all these and still make the sort of music that I make, so I knew that album was going to be received with hesitation and criticism.
People say you don’t really make club anthems, is that correct?
I would say NO to that, because there was Wetin Dey, Jargo and a few others. But on the other hand, are you confining my whole career to the club? Are you saying that if I want to put out an album that I want people to listen to and it’s not made for the club then I’ve made an error? No, I don’t think so. I think with maturity comes responsibility. If I was 25 and there was room for me to be in the club every weekend performing songs like Wetin Dey, now that I’m 29, I might also consider performing elsewhere because there are fifty younger artistes who want to perform in the club.
Naturally, even if I wasn’t in the music industry and I was working in a bank, the older I get the more I want to hang out with people of my age. So for me it has to do with maturity, I guess the expectation from Nigerian fans has been ‘for the club’ which comes with the whole Blackberry and internet thing. How many Nigerians go clubbing really?
Recently, there has been a lot of reggae fusion in your music, are you re-branding?
For me it’s not re-branding, it just me going deeper into my music, it’s like saying Jag of all trades was separate, people who still like that stuff can remain on that level but for people who want to understand why I make the kind of music I make, why I like the kind of music I like, who want to start understanding Jesse as an individual as opposed to just an artiste that wants to put out songs they can tag along with me.
What is the true story about the Chocolate City break up?
I’m really grateful to you because I think this is the first time anyone is asking. I’ve seen a lot of blogs, online and newspapers talking about why I left. I put out a statement myself; I didn’t inform anyone that I was going to leave because I felt that we have had several meetings up until then. People want to act like when an artiste signs a contract he should be afraid.
I’m just an artiste, so if a record label is going to make claims that I owe them or mismanaged their business; I could only earn what I could earn. So, if I’m owing them, then who mismanaged the business? Nobody has asked. People want to treat this like another African story, making it look like the youths are about to rebel again. Let’s just look at what it is, I’m not a lawyer, I dropped out of school, I had nothing, I got signed because I needed money to push my music, so how can I be owing when I had nothing? It’s simple logic, no need to read in between the lines.
Are you saying the split came as a result of mismanagement issues?
Again there are so many details and semantics, but that’s not really it because management-wise I have always managed myself. I’ve paid my manager myself from the day I entered Chocolate City. I was going to keep quiet about this but I’m just not going to let this slide. If they are going to sue me to court then I’m ready.
Being occasionally accused of riding under the auspices of MI, was leaving Chocolate city a statement to that effect?
I would like to state this clearly, I respect MI, he’s my brother, I respect him as an artist because you can’t talk about Nigerian music and not talk about MI. But at the same time, ‘Jag of all trades’ is not an album you should judge me on, you can’t judge a book if it hasn’t been written, for it to have been written means that it has been finished.
This is 2013, my second album is just about to come out, I just started learning to rap. I don’t want to get into discussions of MI, I just want people to sit back and watch some amazing football that’s about to take place; if you love me then you’re going to love what is coming out.
What is your present relationship with other members of Chocolate City like?
MI is my brother and he is vice-president of Chocolate City, I think that’s the funniest contradiction nobody has pointed out. I cannot be fighting Chocolate City when my brother is Vice-president. Ice Prince stays around, I live five minutes away from MI so there cannot be a problem unless the public wants there to be one or somebody is trying to create one.
I decided to walk away because a lot has been done in the name of family, a lot has been done in the name of Nigeria or being together as a country and more evil will be done in the name of good. So that’s fundamentally the reason I left, before family or Chocolate City I was doing music, I wasn’t dead, I wasn’t begging anybody for money, nobody had housed me so life goes on. If this a matter that after saying this we’ll still end up in court then I’m ready to go to court, the public and fans can get ready to see Jesse Jagz in a suit and tie.
Was there a preparation process before leaving Chocolate City and then launching your label?
For those that have been following me online, Jagz Nation is something that I’ve been talking about since last year. It’s just to let people know that Jagz Nation is not a record label, I’m not signing anybody. It’s just me making my music.
Music without a record label means a lot of personal effort and funding. How has that been so far?
It’s been great; I just did my first video myself, Redemption. This next album coming out is the first album for me, because I’ve come together as a person with music, no outside opinion, it’s just pure, raw Jesse Jagz saying what I want to say how I want to say. That’s why everything is slow. The tortoise lives for five hundred years as the slowest animal. He defies the laws of time. Time is his weapon, the days will just keep changing but we will be here. If we are not then we are dead, it doesn’t matter, but as long as we are here then there’s time.
Rumour has it that you have a love child; do you have any regrets having that child?
I don’t think so, which is why I even had her. Life is life, a child is a child, when she was born, I was at the hospital myself with her mother’s family. None of my parents, nobody else showed up that day. That was how I wanted it because the day I was born I came alone and that’s how I do my things. I’m in my own zone.
I come, do my thing and I go. People want to get in the argument of me not being married yet but I have a child, she’s been born. She’s alive and she carries my genes in her, my intellect, musically also but on an exponential level. She raps and she is on my album and I want to say it categorically that my daughter raps better than 80% of the Nigerian rappers and she’s just nine-years-old. At the same time, nine years later she is the love of everybody that sees her but back then she was a taboo and I’m going to say it so that she can read it anytime she wakes up because back then nobody wanted her to come in to this world.
Do you have any plans of tying the knots with her mum or anyone else soon?
This is the reason why I’m not married; every girl in Nigeria wants to get married. There’s a difference between marriage and ‘claiming’, what happens culturally is ‘claiming’, a man claims a woman and a man can claim several women. I don’t want to get into the schematic argument about marriage; I prefer to get into the commitment argument. I can be with a woman for 30-years, she could die in my arms but it shouldn’t matter to anybody whether we are married because we would have lived our lives. We would have eaten like every human being.
Being a father comes with its responsibilities. What’s the relationship between you are daughter like?
My daughter doesn’t school in Lagos so I don’t even get to spend much time with her as I would like but I train her as an adult. She understands that I and her mum are not together, that her mum could meet a man tomorrow and get married; she needs to understand that, no lies involved. It is her life, she’s on earth and I’m not going to mess it up with lies.
Mistakes that I’ve made I let her know, not covering anything up. I tell her the truth, she has even met a couple of my girlfriends but at the same time I respect her more than anybody else which is why I’m not rushing into anything. I and her mum are still friends but adults need to differentiate between marriage and friendship. It’s wrong to bring up a child knowing that you’re just married because of him or her. I know that there’s also that responsibility, growing up in a society that believes in tradition and culture and wanting to make sure that I’m not stepping out of line and making sure that I’m not passing across the wrong message to
