Some popular artistes do more than just singing and writing music. Some of them are also skilled music producers. Saturday Beats take a look at artistes that fall into this category
Davido
Popular singer and record label boss, David Adeleke, aka Davido, is one artiste who has also tried his hands at music production. The 30BG boss recently took to his Twitter page to inform his fans that he was once a music producer and sound engineer. According to him, he mixed and mastered his first two singles.
Recall that the ‘Stand Strong’ singer made his debut in the music industry with the song, ‘Back When’, featuring Naeto C. According to his Wikipedia page, he produced both ‘Back When’ and ‘Dami Duro’. He is also said to have produced songs for the likes of Naeto C, Skales, Tiwa Savage and Sauce Kid.
Davido has three sudio albums to his name— ‘Omo Baba Olowo’, ‘A Good Time’ and ‘A Better Time’ in 2012, 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Simi
Simisola Kosoko, simply known as Simi, started her music career as a gospel singer. She went on to release her first album, ‘Ogaju’, in 2008. She followed this up with a five-track Extended Play album titled, ‘Restless’ in January 2014.
She subsequently released other albums including, ‘Simisola’, ‘Omo Charlie Champagne’, ‘Restless’ and ‘To Be Honest’ in 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2022 respectively. Aside from being a talented music writer and singer, Simi has also explored mixing and mastering her own music, producing songs straight from the heart. In 2019, Simi excitedly told her followers on Twitter that she had made her first beat as a project for a class she was taking at the time. She subsequently mixed and mastered songs for her husband, Adekunle Gold’s ‘Gold’ album.
Omah Lay
Stanley Didia, aka Omah Lay, is a singer, songwriter and music producer. He came into the limelight in 2020, following the success of his self-produced song, ‘Bad Influence’, which was the most streamed Nigerian song on Apple Music at the end of 2020.
According to the talented singer, he became a singer after realising that he was not getting due credit for works he had done as a producer. The move definitely paid off as the music producer and singer now has more songs to his name, including both local and international collaborations. Some of his notable songs are ‘Godly’, ‘Bend you’, ‘Understand’ and ‘Woman’. He also featured Canadian singer, Justin Bieber, on the song, ‘Attention’.
Maleek Berry
Maleek Shoyebi, aka Maleek Berry, is a music producer and artiste. In 2014, he was nominated in the category of ‘Music Producer of the Year’ at the 2014 edition of the Nigerian Entertainment Awards.
The singer-cum-producer came into public consciousness after he produced Wizkid’s hit song, ‘Azonto’. He has also worked with artistes such as Davido, Runtown, Fuse ODG and Iyanya.
As a singer, his songs include ‘Kontrol’, ‘One Life’, ‘Bend It’, ‘Been Calling’, ‘Pon my Mind’ and ‘Sisi Maria’.
Tekno
Augustine Miles, aka Tekno, is a singer and songwriter. At the age of eight, Tekno was enrolled into a music school where he learnt and mastered the rudiments of playing the piano and guitar.
Some of the notable songs he has produced are ‘If’ (Davido), ‘Catch You’ (Flavour), ‘Show’ (Victoria Kimani), ‘Boss’ (Ice Prince) and ‘Go’ (Tekno).
As a singer, his hits include ‘Pana’, ‘Rara’, ‘Samantha’, ‘Go’ and ‘Skeletun’.
Young John
Another artiste who remains top tier as a musician and record producer is, Udonboso John, popularly called Young John. He is best known for the tag line, ‘Young John, the wicked producer’. He has production credits on albums such as ‘Street OT’ by Olamide, and ‘2Kings’ by Olamide and Phyno.
Production credits to his name include ‘Gbese’ and ‘Efejoku’ by Lil Kesh, ‘Biggest Backside’ by Davido, and ‘Story for the Gods’ by Olamide.
Cobhams
Cobhams Asuquo is undoubtedly one of the well known producers in Nigeria. In 2005, the artiste was signed to Sony ATV London as a songwriter. He later set up his own recording facility in 2006, after working as the head of audio productions at the record label, Questionmark Entertainment.
Ckay
Chukwuka Ekweani, popularly known as Ckay, is a singer and producer signed to Warner Music Group. Growing up, his love for music was driven by his father who was a choir conductor at their church.
Ckay has made songs in different genres of music including afrobeats, RnB and dancehall. In March 2022, his hit single, ‘Love Nwantiti’, which was produced in 2019, debuted at number one on the newly launched Billboard Afrobeats Chart. It became the first African song in history to surpass one billion streams on Spotify.
Some of the songs he has produced are ‘Oliver Kahn’, ‘Ella’ by Dice Ailes, ‘Give Them’ by Coker, ‘Chike’ by Ice Prince and ‘Omoge’ by DJ Spinall featuring Dotman.
