The Duo Behind Omah Lay’s Rise – Part 2
This is part 2 of an interview with Nigerian music execs Valo and Marshall, whose music label KeyQaad is responsible for the rise of Afro-fusion artist Omah Lay. Read part 1 here.
ORIS AIGBOKHAEVBOLO: When did recording begin?
VALO (V): Remember, we had purchased equipment for a previous artist we had tried working with, so those things we purchased for him were what Omah used. We had to find him producers. Omah tweeted ‘album mode’ and his phones are blowing up with beats from producers.
MARSHALL (M): We had to pay in advance for every one of them to come to record.
V: In 2019, there was a shift in the industry. The guys that blew up in 2019 didn’t think they needed radio like that. Do you get what I’m saying? They had people in the background that picked them up that know the guys on radio, that know this is how it should be. But back in 2017, 2018 it was different. So now we have to deal with the new producers who are churning out hits but have never been to radio, so no favours could be exchanged. Turns out none of the beats we paid really made it onto Get Layd.
What was the process like?
M: Some of them, they had to do a session together, but nothing productive came out of it. We just saw them as the mentoring process. It’s not like we’re trying to teach you anything. It’s basically trying to see what we can add to whatever exists in you. Do you understand? But yes, none of them actually made it. And it’s not the fault of the producers or the fault of Omah. For us, it was artist development.
V: I do that till today. These artists were on their own before they got a record deal – they’ll make music with their guys. To some of them, it’s maybe fun, but they haven’t been in a space where they make music with someone, because in the end, it is music business, right? I wanna put you in a room with someone who has made a hit.
With the popstars, you guys can make a hit.
V: Yes. Even if it’s not for you to make a hit with him, but for you to see another form of recording. There are people who would hear the beat, sit with it and write every word before they jump in the booth. But if I put you with an artist who’s made a hit, they can tell you, ‘Omo, this way wey you dey do am, e dey okay o. But guy, that song wey blow, no be so I do am o.’ In a writing camp, you’ll see how an artist moves through, like, ‘Let me lay the melody… No, I don’t wanna do the verses, I wanna do the hook first. It will drive me…’ You learn it. It’s a process. Omah didn’t have friends in Lagos that he was making music together with. He left all his friends in PH. We needed producers that would send us music and he would record in his room. But we needed to know what it was like in a new space – big city, in the real industry. So that was it. That was the process.
How long did that take?
V: He recorded ‘Get Layd’ from August. I think in March, we had the EP before the lockdown.
M: Actually, the EP was ready before we released the first song.
M: It was ready on 11 January. One of the things we’ve learnt along the way was always to have something to react with. So we always knew that if we were going to bring out this guy with a single, we need to have our EP ready. Whatever happens, we put a date for our EP, we move. The EP was ready on 10 January. Then, we planned the release for ‘You’ for 14 February. Valentine’s Day.
Omah Lay - You
https://youtu.be/hxe6Ly4xfkE
That was the first single?
M: Yes, that was the first single off of it.
V: We had dropped ‘Bad Influence’ on 17 January. We dropped a one-minute teaser for ‘Bad Influence’. This was the day we recorded the last one [displays a video]. This was January.
Were you giving a speech?
V: No, it’s not a speech. I had a bottle of champagne.
Oh okay, a toast like, ‘finally we’re here’.
V: We were about to go to the MVPs!
You guys knew the title before all of this?
V: Yeah.
You knew it was going to be an EP, not an album?
M/V: Yes.
V: The only thing actually is ‘Bad Influence’ was not supposed to be on there.
M: The lockdown did that.
How come?
M: Because we had ‘You’ out already. Going into the lockdown, nobody knew what the situation was. We had ‘Bad Influence’ out already which was out before ‘You’. So we felt like at this point, while we can’t put out new music, we can channel our energy to ‘Bad Influence’, and while people are sitting at home or whatever was happening in the world, if they’re looking for something to turn to, they can turn to ‘Bad Influence’ while we can restrategise, because a lot of the tools we wanted to use in promoting the EP, we could no longer access because of the lockdown. ‘Bad Influence’ was the giveaway song. So we now turned on to it to try to give us time, because at the time…
V: It was a freebie.
M: Yes. At the time we were going into the lockdown, ‘You’ was already picking up. You could hear people saying…
M/V: ‘I love, I love you!’
M: We had booked about three shows. Some people were already reaching out for all these mini gigs, but we had hooked up some major shows in Lagos here that I really feel like these guys stood out for us. We could really use this to showcase this person, because nobody knew who this guy was, but people knew the song. I was walking on the street and hearing someone driving and playing, ‘I love, I love you!’ So we twisted attention to ‘Bad Influence’ while we waited to see what the world would turn into. In that switching of attention, ‘Bad Influence’ started picking up and we felt like, okay, it’s only right the song gets on the EP.
Earlier when you guys were trying to shop or pitch the first song ‘Hello Brother’, people didn't really gravitate towards it. At what stage did that change?
V: I think we were in Vellvett or Moist [popular clubs in Victoria Island, Lagos]. We started going out a lot. Let me tell you the truth about ‘Bad Influence’. ‘I’m rolling on your wheel now, I’m drinking Hennessy now, can’t you see…’ When he came, we were partying. I felt like or we felt like he needed to. If you’re going to make music for these people you need to feel them. ‘Hello Brother’, ‘Do Not Disturb’ – those were songs that came while you were locked up in the house. But now, if you have to make music for Lagos, you have to feel Lagos, you have to party with Lagos. There was this one night. We were in the club. Davido was right at the next table. We were in a room. At the end of the night, we were back in the car, and then I asked him, ‘When I met you, there are names you churned out for me from your personal playlist of people that you like. I respect that. I respect that you want to make your music this way, but what has changed since you came to Lagos?’ He was like, ‘Omo, I no dey hear their music for club o. Omo, guy, you see Davido as im come, they were just playing his songs. They were playing his songs back to back. He enjoyed the attention that Davido had in the club. He started seeing that life. So it was now a case of, I can be this guy, but I can add my own influences. I can be what I wanna be, which is me, but I can borrow a thing or two from this guy so I can get attention for people to know that I can have them sing, ‘She loves me like damn, like damn damn’, but I need for them to dance to ‘Lo Lo’ in the club.
This is why I believe so much in artist development. The artist has to be around. When L.A. Reid signed Usher, he sent him to Puffy. Usher already had everything that Usher had, but he needed to have that ‘bad boy’ edge. Be a rock star but be a musician.
M: I think this part of artist development thing depends a lot on the artist. If Omah was still in PH [Port Harcourt], he probably wouldn’t make ‘Godly’ that quick. That’s if he would make ‘Godly’ at all. You come to this place then you see what’s around you. You see what’s obtainable. Your psyche starts to change a little bit, but you know that deep down you are who you are.
V: With the singles, I feel like he could use some help, and that’s where my experience comes in. That’s where Marshall’s experience in radio comes in. We think that we may have an idea of what works on radio. You can’t ignore radio. So, with the singles, we can suggest. Even on Get Layd, ‘Damn’ was the first song he recorded. ‘Damn’ came naturally.
M: ‘Damn’ is like the one Omah Lay song that we did not have any input on.
V: There was no second take.
M: What he brought in was what we sent in for mixing.
V: ‘Bad Influence’ too. But with ‘Bad Influence’ he had recorded the first verse and posted it on social media. Then we went back after people started liking him.
Omah Lay - Godly
Get Layd became popular fast. What made this happen quickly for Omah Lay?
M: Going into this business, we knew we could call on a few friends for support. But we knew we didn’t have the DSP [digital service provider] front figured out. For me, the first part of progress is accepting what you don’t know. I knew I could work radio. I knew who to call here and there for help. But I had no idea about the internet, especially the digital marketing bit. But we knew, in the end, it was editors. They are human, right? And I happen to be an editor curating music. We didn’t get support for ‘You’ when we dropped ‘You’. It was on radio, but we weren’t getting any form of support on DSPs. So the first … ‘Bad Influence’ had gotten to 22 on Apple Music before we got our first playlist. So, we thought about, what was our strength? It was Lagos terrestrial. Let’s focus on that. And for the new guys, I will always say Shazam. People will shazam what they like. The more it keeps playing, people will shazam it and your Shazam numbers are very important.
M: As important as anything else. Your Shazam numbers are directly proportional to the number of new people who discovered your music.
The question now is, how do you make people discover the music?
M: Whenever you hear the music, and you like the music…
V: What’s your strength in making people hear? If your strength is being on social media and you have influencers who are your friends and they put it out there and people are shazaming it, that’s your strength. When every other door closes, go back to your strength.
And your strength is radio.
V: Our strength at the time was radio. People would shazam it and then we are going back to those guys that we didn’t know –?the DSPs – and you’re saying, ‘I’m getting these numbers from my city, maybe we should [work something out]’
You control what you can control as well as what you possibly can.
V: Accept the fronts that you know nothing about. Then, work the ones you know something about. Numbers are numbers anywhere.
Fair enough.
V: If I have 200 million streams on Audiomack, I can go anywhere and say, ‘You should pay attention to my artist.’ The attention brings cash.
At what point did you realise you guys had done it?
V: I saw how crazy it was when Blaqbonez hit No 1 [on Apple Music]. I saw how important it was from when he was doing the ‘How many kilometres do I have to walk to get to No 1.’ We got our No 1 on May 23. ‘Bad Influence’.
M: That was a day after we dropped the EP.
Eventually, they lined up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?
V: Yes, 1,2,3,4,5 and that morning, it was Dvpper, our digital distribution handler who called me and was like, ‘Bro!’ This was the boy we picked from PH that we had been trying to sell. Now people had listened to his songs more than every other song. That was the point for me. I think it has to still be the only time I screamed, I jumped, I called everybody. I had a party at mine. There’s nothing as sweet as your first No 1. That was the point that we felt fulfilled. That, yo, these late nights paid off. Even if it falls off tomorrow. But, what?! The second time I felt it had happened was at Atlantic Mall in Chevron. We were shopping.
M: These guys were playing the Get Layd EP
V: Back to back, so we went to buy something, We heard ‘Ye Ye Ye’. We were like, ‘Okay…’
M: They played ‘Damn’ next.
V: They played the entire EP.
M: And another thing is, because of our years in radio, we were always looking out for people’s reaction when certain songs were playing. So while this EP was playing, we were looking. Some of the people in the mall were singing along. And this was within the EP’s first week.
What happens next for KeyQaad?
M: We have spent time structuring the company and looking for the next superstar, which we may have found. So he is going through his own form of artistry. He is in his ‘Omah Lay seeing Davido in the club’ moment.
In about two years, you guys have had quite an incredible journey. Do you guys ever think about it and say, ‘We have tried’?
M: Sometimes, I ask him and he asks me too, ‘When will we ever sit down and really enjoy this ride?’ Because every time you want to sit back and just say that and have a drink, there’s something that needs to be done?”
V: It’s frustrating.
M: It’s frustrating but welcome.
V: People look at you and be like, ‘You had an awesome 2020’. I mean, of course, you can consider a little bit of financial kick there, but I don’t feel it – in the sense that there is the next. You think that Omah is big, Omah is blown. Welcome to pressure. But yeah, as Marshall says, it’s welcome pressure.
You’re not going to sing with Omah, he’s not going to feature Valo. No. But he’s counting on you to make his account balance. You have to translate those numbers into money, into cash. You’re up at night thinking about that. At the same time, you’re thinking, ‘Yo, this next song.’ I mean, boys are coming up. He’s not going to be the new kid on the block forever. He’s no longer the new kid on the block. There is that. There is going for greatness. For me, Omah is going to be mentioned [at that level] and it’s happening already. In one year, it is happening. You call Burna Boy, you call Wizkid, you call Davido, you call Omah Lay. We don’t sleep. Davido, Wizkid, Burna – they didn’t achieve that from ‘Omo, guy make we chill’. We will sleep when we die.
source: musicinafrica.net