She’s arguably one of the female artistes that contributed to growth of the Nigerian music culture, her single ‘Awww’ released 10 years ago remains relevant till date. A former Mavin records signee, Hadiza Blell-Olo, professionally known as Di’ja speaks with The NATION’s ADENIYI ADEWOYIN on diverse issues in this interview.
Where have you been?
I’ve been right here just trying to put something amazing together for you all. I have released a new EP called Aphropop Vol. 2, Harmattan Blues. I did that on December 1st. I kind of did that intentionally towards the Christmas time for my beautiful amazing supporters. So yes I’m here.
How has the reception been for the EP?
Well, this is my second show of the year and it is fantastic, very beautiful, and the orchestral is amazing. Honestly, being on stage after quite a number of years it just feels like home.
I enjoyed watching you perform ‘Awww’, I think it is evergreen as it feels fresh…
It is one of the greatest songs in Nigeria, shout out to Don Jazzy.
How do you feel when you get feedback from your old songs unlike the usual ones we listen to nowadays by some artists?
I always feel like you can never go wrong with timeless music, it doesn’t matter when or where or how you perform it. The reception here was really nice and I’m glad you all enjoyed it. The song is going to be ten years old this year, it was released in 2014.
How would you describe your music?
This is the best time to be an artist. My music is evergreen music, it’s the people’s music. That’s how I define it. I just want to touch your soul. Afrobeats literally has given me my biggest platform, I just feel like the kind of music that I make is brought from that and everything that I make and everything I make after that is from God because I have a new different kind of mindset and feelings. In my EP I have four different features as well, Portable being one of them. Portable and I connected in 2022 and I reached out to him. He’s my guy and I understand it seems very odd about two different people but you know that internally we are all different kinds of people. The name of the song is ‘Never Give Up’ and it just personified him. I reached out to him a year ago and he replied and he did the song.
A collaboration with Portable makes it seem like you’re switching from the soulful sound you’re known for…
You’ve forgotten ‘Wan Chop’, I honestly enjoy making music and I literally go by the spirit. Afrobeats is a culture of music and it has housed and adopted a lot of us. For me, Afrobeats is like a mother sheep and it has adopted many of us so yes I have especially when I was with Mavins I learnt a lot from different artists.
Talking about Afrobeats, what’s your opinion about the disappointing outcome at the Grammys for our Nigerian stars who got ten nominations all together but none of the nominees won?
The thing is you win some you lose some. The idea for me is as an African I want Africa to always win but obviously you go dey root for Naija although I also root for Naija and Sierra Leone. Just the fact that we were nominated and some of our artists fought for us to be collecting our awards on the stage. For me I just see progression and it’s not just about the award, all the artists that went up there are still amazingly dope so it’s not really up to the award to validate them, they are already validated in my eyes.
What is your opinion about the proposed African Grammy by the Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa?
We have different kinds of awards out here but we need more funding, more support. Even within ourselves I want to see more collaborations including me as an artist, I want to collaborate more. I don’t know if I should consider myself shy but I am very awkward. A lot of times I do need collaborations but I’m very shy about them but this time they say ‘no gree for anybody’. In the sense of the name, I think we should have a vote for that.
What are your thoughts about the music industry especially with the number of females right now?
It makes me feel very good to have more females in the industry right now. I’ve always been one of the people always talking about it. So, it’s nice to see more women but I still want more women in the industry as we have so many talents out there.
It seems like men in the industry always support each other and that’s why they are big in the industry, could it be that women aren’t doing much for each other?
I don’t really think so but I want to see women in roles of leadership because sometimes the people making the decisions are men. When we talk about women supporting women we exclude a lot of things. I do get a lot of support from women and not only women in the industry but women all over. We want men supporting women as well.
Aside from music, do you have programs that you do specifically to support women?
My husband and I actually have the iChange Foundation that we’ve been running for some years now. I also have an animation company called Dij Animation. Recently, we started working on the high mortality rate because there’s a lot of deaths during pregnancy and we also do a lot of education and outside the goal is to have over hundred students that we can put through school and it’s not just that it’s making sure that they are guided. I also do a lot of period conversations with young girls because the sexuality conversation in Nigeria is very low and that’s why we have a lot or rape and related issues. One of the things we are known for is to support other foundations. If for instance we have reached our goal for the year we can support other foundations to get through with their goals.
