Working with Snoop Dogg is a dream come true – D’Banj

While red-hot Nigerian pop star D’Banj has been making headlines across Africa for some time now, his talent is being felt as far as the United States of America and beyond with his current single featuring famous rapper Snoop Dogg. It first began as a rumour spreading all over Facebook and on Twitter, and it […]

While red-hot Nigerian pop star D’Banj has been making headlines across Africa for some time now, his talent is being felt as far as the United States of America and beyond with his current single featuring famous rapper Snoop Dogg. It first began as a rumour spreading all over Facebook and on Twitter, and it was an elated D’Banj who beamed on MTV Base to announce that work on the track was done. “We have finished cutting the remix,” he earlier said to Weekend Magazine excitedly. The song is a remix of one of the artiste’s biggest hits so far, ‘Mr. Endowed.’

But nothing prepared D’Banj’s hordes of fans for the video’s debut on MTV Base. The clip showed the Nigerian star with Snoop Dogg living a lavish life, shot in spectacular cinematography and the video is currently doing well on the charts. On a short clip on MTV Base, the crooner also mentioned possibilities of his close friend, producer and constant collaborator Don Jazzy producing for the likes of Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West. That got interesting because recently, Kanye West tweeted that D’Banj and Don Jazzy should “Hurry up and get back to New York, as there’s still work left.”

“Working on the song and video with Snoop is a dream come true. I have always loved his work, like most music lovers of my generation. Snoop is a living legend,” he said. While D’Banj was coy on the Kanye West collaboration, he was more forthcoming on the Snoop Dogg one, dishing details on the wild behind-the-scenes happenings. “It was like an endless party,” he said. Snoop Dogg also declared that D’Banj is his ‘first Nigerian nephew’ with D’Banj smiling and calling the rapper ‘uncle’.

D’Banj was born in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria to a military officer who commanded an artillery regiment and a church dignitary mother who hailed from Shagamu in Ogun State. Due to his father’s profession he moved several times within Nigeria and also moved to India. He was expected to follow his father’s military career and was enrolled to the Nigerian Military School at age eleven, and left after three years. He was introduced to the harmonica by his late older brother, Femi Oyebanjo, who died in a plane crash at age seventeen.

With D’Banj love for music being greater than his parents’ military aspirations, he struggled for his parents’ approval.

D’Banj is an energetic and charismatic live performer and has performed at Femi Kuti’s New Afrikan Shrine in Lagos as well as at the Black President Concert in memory of Fela’s art and legacy in London, and also alongside many international artists in Nigeria like Kelly Rowland at the 1st Edition of the MTV Africa Music Awards 2008 in Abuja, Nigeria. “I will continue to deliver thrilling surprises to my fans,” he told Weekend Magazine, “wherever they may be.”