How I overcame sexual harassment – Tiwa Savage

Speaking at the Youth Enterprise Conference 2016, which  recently held at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, singer Tiwa Savage, opened up on her career and how she built the Tiwa
Savage brand, revealing some of her best kept secrets including how to
remain relevant in the entertainment industry.

“I left the country when I was young. I was supposed to go to an Air
Force school so my parents shaved my hair but my mummy later took me to
the UK and some people started bullying me and saying I looked like a
small boy,” Tiwa Savage began, going down memory lane, “while I was in
the UK I went to the United States. Whenever I said I was a singer they
asked for my name and I said ‘Tiwa Savage.’ Next they asked ‘where are
you from’ and I told them I am from Nigeria. I realised that they were
so interested in Fela’s music, Tuface and Mo Hits.

“It dawned on me that they seemed to be more inter­ested in the music
from my country but here I was in the US trying to learn how to sing R n
B, hip hop, pop, jazz and gospel music.”

Filling the gap

Starting from age 16, Tiwa Savage has worked with international acts
like Mary J Blige, George Michael, Chaka Khan, Babyface and Whitney
Houston. When Nigerian hip pop began to gain relevance on the global
scene, Tiwa Sav­age said was worried that only few female artistes could
be counted among the stars making waves back then. Conse­quently, her
resolve to come home and turn the tide around became very intense and
this culminated in her relocating to Nigeria in 2010.

“I told myself ‘why should I wait for someone like Beyonce to do Afro
beat songs while I am from Nigeria.’ I was like ‘let me go back and do
this myself.’ That was when I met my husband who was my friend back
then. He was actually playing a lot of Nigerian videos and I fell in
love with Yori Yori. That was the best song at that time. I watched
videos from Mo Hits and P Square but I noticed there weren’t many female
artistes.

“That was when I decided to pack everything and move to Nigeria. I
had a good job as a songwriter with Babyface at that time but I sold my
car, my belongings and came to Nigeria.

“But when I got to Nigeria I was humbled. I was speaking fone.
I was like ‘hello, I am singer,’ and the response in Yo­ruba was like
‘E jo a ko yen je.’ (Please we don’t fancy that). My first performance
at Kennis Easter Fiesta was a disaster! I was stoned with pure water
bags because I was singing English songs and blowing too much phonetics.

“I ran back to my husband who was my boyfriend at that time and cried
‘my people are not accepting me, I don’t know what to do.’ He told me
to start singing songs that they could relate with. And that was how I
came up with Kele Kele Love.”

Building the brand

Today, five years after she relocated to Nigeria, Tiwa Savage is one
of Nigeria’s most successful singers. She has two albums and a string of
hit songs to her credit and is also ambassador to a couple of brands.

Making reference to the advice giving to her by her boss and Mavin
Records founder, Don Jazzy, she said: “Some­times, success is not really
when you make it but how you sustain it. A lot of musicians were huge
when I moved to Nigeria about five years ago but now we don’t really
hear much about them.

“What Don Jazzy told me was that getting a hit record is great but
building a brand is more important. Music is also a business but we tend
to forget the business side of it. You need to create a lifestyle that
young people want to emulate. Sometimes, you may not have the biggest
song out there but you are still doing shows, getting endorsements and
calls to speak to people and that is because you are a brand.”

Leveraging on social media

On how to maximise the benefits of social media she had this to
say:”Social media is extremely fantastic for us artistes. It makes you
closer to your audience. It has become a great source of revenue for
artistes. Some companies want you to endorse their products and they
call you. I have over a million followers on Twitter and the same goes
for Insta­gram. With YouTube, you get paid for views but it all boils
down to building your brand.

“I am not the only talented singer that gets on stage to dance and do
all the routines but when you build your brand, it makes you stand out.
It is not every day that you will have a hit song but the day you don’t
have one, your brand will sustain you.”

Sexual harassment

The Nigerian music industry is awash with tales of men asking for sex
from female artistes before giving them any form of assistance. It was
not different for Tiwa Savage in the early days of her career. This much
the singer revealed to Entertainer.

Recounting her experience, Tiwa Savage continued: “A lot of times
they said that they wanted to help me but actu­ally they wanted me to do
‘something’ with them. Luckily I had a crazy boyfriend who ended up
being my husband. He just shot them down.

“If you are really talented and good at what you do and you have God
behind you, don’t give in to that kind of temp­tation. I guarantee you
that your talent will make a way for you. The same people will be the
ones calling and you will even get more than you ever imagined if you
don’t give in.”

Commenting on her relationship with her fans, Tiwa Sav­age said she
has never had a situation where a fan publicly embarrassed her: “Nobody
has physically done anything harmful to me. Even when people say bad
things about me, my songs, my husband or my marriage, I don’t think I
have to take it personal. Of course, I am human,” the singer con­cluded.