How we deal with crazy female fans —Styl Plus

Tunde: Our brand of music makes us unique. It is not something you can always  relate to other types of music. You can still feel some bit of Boys II Men and  some foreign groups but at the end of the day, it still retains its own  uniqueness from others. Here you have three different […]

Tunde: Our brand of music makes us unique. It is not something you can always  relate to other types of music. You can still feel some bit of Boys II Men and  some foreign groups but at the end of the day, it still retains its own  uniqueness from others. Here you have three different young men from the same country doing music together and still putting a bit of cultural flavour into it.  Musically it is about doing things originally.

What are the specific influences of your music then?

Tunde: It is all about what we have been listening to while growing up. It differs from individual to individual but generally what we listen to as a group is Boys II Men as group artistes and then as solo artistes, we listen to Stevie Wonder.

Zeal: Michael Bolton, a whole lot of RNB and Pop groups…

Tunde: Most of our inspiration comes from what we have experienced, what we see happening and what we expect to happen.

Why do you sing the kind of songs you sing? Why not fuji or Afro-juju or even Akpala?

Tunde: Different strokes for different people. You listen to several brands of music but there is a particular one you enjoy the most and you find yourself singing. It is the kind that brings joy to you every time.

Olufunmi was a hit that shot you to limelight. What inspired the song?

Zeal: It was one of the songs we actually had in store even before we came into limelight. We actually did a bit of hustling in our early days. We had experiences  with different labels. Dudu Heritage, Kennis and a whole lot of them. The song initially wasn’t what it eventually came out as. It had a different  tune to it. We started with something like Sophia, a girl’s name too. We went to record labels and we were actually doing full time western RNB. In Nigeria though, when you do something like that they will say that it sounds too foreign.

We now went back to Lagos and after many months of brainstorming, we decided to mix culture with the international and Shifi and Tunde actually sat together and then we came out with Olufunmi. I came around later and listened to it and was impressed.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Tunde: We all go way back, right from our primary school days through secondary to the university and that was at the Federal University, Akure. I was in my 100 level, Shifi, 200 level, Zeal wasn’t in school then. A year later, Zeal gained admission. We formed the group then. We sang in church and were doing a lot of special numbers. Eventually, Lanre a member of the group, passed away leaving Yemi. Zeal joined the group. With Zeal joining the group it became Styl-Plus. When we left school, Yemi left to pursue his academic career and we decided to go ahead with the group.

What has kept you together for so long?

Tunde: The fact that we are sensible accounts for this. This is apart from the  fact that we are all friends. We all have the same aspirations and goals.

Personally, I wouldn’t have gone into music without the support of the others. I wouldn’t even have thought of doing solo…

In the past few months there appears to be a lull in your activities. What is happening?

Tunde: We still have our fan base. We haven’t lost them. Maybe we haven’t made new ones but we still have our loyal fans who have continued to support us all along. It is still like a one man business even though it is a collection of individual guys working together, where you have to make money and invest such monies into the same brand. We recently had issues with our management and it was as if we would have gone back to zero level. Right now we are trying to get our drive back. But we have lost most of the infrastructure that was on ground before. Now we have to make new links. Those links that were handled by the former management have to be moved to the new management. There was actually a time we didn’t have any manager because nobody had anything to offer us. Now basically it is about three guys re-investing their money back into the business. We are using this money to survive and to pay the bills. You can imagine how much is needed to do this. But we are still in the game despite the challenges.

How many albums do you have in your kitty presently?
Tunde: This is the third one called ‘Unbreakable.’ Unbreakable is an 11 tracker with a diversity of music, basically hip hop and RnB. It was released sometime in January. At the moment the record label is defaulting in the  agreement and we haven’t been paid for our work.

Give us your assessment of the nation’s music industry at present?
Tunde: I think it is overrated. A lot of people think it is improving but this is not so. The music industry shouldn’t be all about videos and looking glamorous and plenty people talking about monies they do not have. It should be about the infrastructure in place that should protect intellectual rights. You slave in the studio for 5 months coming out with an album and they start pirating it. You now have to start depending on shows. This is not right. There is nothing in Nigeria to protect intellectual rights…
Zeal: The music industry in Nigeria has strived and thrived. But this is just on the surface; there is no real depth to it. The artistes have put in a lot of efforts but there is no engine room. There is no real body or medium that protects the interests of the players. If only we can do that music in Nigeria will generate much more funds for everyone involved.

What specific moments remain indelible for you professionally?
Tunde: There are so many shows that we feel could have been better not as a result of our efforts but that of the organizers of the show. Where you are invited for a show and the organizers have not done their homework especially the sound system or the feedback system or even the publicity of the show. There are also safety concerns. At the Hilton, for instance, the stage collapsed under us. Shifi fell in even though I escaped…
Zeal: The long and short of it is good performance, management and good packaging of the shows. We take all these things for granted. We have actually had good moments and bad ones but the good ones overshadow the bad ones.
Tunde: Particularly the one we had in Kano was near perfect and we remember it  with happiness. All the stage preparations were done to perfection. The crowd inspired us. It has happened in other campuses like Ife, UNIBEN and UNILAG.

Do you now produce your music yourself?
Tunde: They say don’t change a winning system. We have stuck to our producers.
We have been using Sunki and Mekoyo so far. I produced some tracks like ‘Imagine that’ and ‘Jekaserelo’ in the current album. We are also working with TY Mix on a project. We are looking forward and open to working with other producers of course.

How do you handle petulant female fans?
Zeal: Tunde is happily married. Zeal is in a relationship. I wouldn’t know for Shifi for now.
Tunde: I just got married May this year, as much as I would have wanted to keep it low it still came out in some dailies. That is my private life of course. Concerning our female fans, we have been handling them well. We have not had any scandal attached to our names. We wouldn’t say we have been saints either or guilty anyway.
Zeal: Dealing with female fans is part of the job. You have to be professional in the way you deal with your fans. We do not mix business with pleasure of course.

Where do you see Styl Plus in the next couple of years?
Tunde: I live the day as it comes. I don’t even know what comes tomorrow. By God’s grace, we would be in a safe place. We want the best for ourselves but you wouldn’t see a brand divulging all its secrets.
Shifi(Just arriving) In the next five years, maybe three more albums but with a different flavour than what we have been doing. Also, we want to do more of our own events instead of all this five minutes or ten minutes performances on stage, probably doing our own tours and concerts and less of invitations. That will give us control of our schedules so we can take care of our other commitments.

Any collaborations in the making?
Zeal: We are almost through with the TY Mix song. We are headed up to Jesse Jagz. Cobalt comes after that. There are other plans of course in the making.
The focus now is not individual collabos but group.

The level of originality is low in the music industry. Why is this so?
Tunde: Being a copycat itself is an act. If it works for them, why not? We have the original cologne for those that can afford to buy and the fake ones for those who cannot afford the original. If it works for them, they should just keep at it and forget to be original. But I think it is best to be original.
Zeal: If you are a copycat, you have to be better than the original though. That is how you can attract attention.
Shifi: It is an act with its own package. But it spoils business for the original. It never really creates a legacy. Under difficult times it tends to disappear from the market but the original remains even after turbulent times.