Olamide Adedeji is one of Nigerian entertainment’s most elusive executives. He’s spent over a decade avoiding the limelight, despite sharing a name with one of the most recognisable rappers in Africa, Olamide. ‘I’m a recluse’, he told me, insisting his works do all the talking.
Getting him to agree to an interview for a Netng profile wasn’t easy. I had met him while he was Group Channels Manager for Consolidated Media Associate (owners of Soundcity), so I already had his contact. Yet it took some cajoling and me convincing him that telling his story would inspire young Nigerians. He finally agreed, after four days, and the date was set. A Zoom date, of course, due to COVID restrictions and his busy schedule.
Olamide Adedeji, who hails from Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State, was born on March 25, 1985, and grew up in Lagos. ‘I grew up in interesting parts of Lagos,’ he tells me. ‘I grew up in areas like Shomolu, Gbagada, Ikotun, Bariga, Alimosho, Ikeja. It was a function of having families in different parts and spending time with them during the holidays or visits.’
This multi-location upbringing significantly influenced Olamide’s love for music and the choices he made in life. ‘A lot of things appealed to me while growing up that I enjoyed. All these areas I’ve lived in shaped me a little. Shomolu, Bariga played a role in my understanding and appreciation of Fuji music. I grew up loving artistes like Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, General Ayinla Kollington.’
Despite his love for music and arts, he studied accounting at Lagos State University. Olamide himself did not foresee a future in the media industry or as something he would someday do professionally. Accounting was one of the choices he prefered.
‘I remember that I wanted to study Banking and Finance, then Actuarial science, then Accounting and Finance. I liked literature and arts, but it just wasn’t a thing I wanted to go for or do in the future as part of my professional life. Numbers appealed to me at that time, and it just seemed very cool. I always liked reading magazines about Wall Street and the guys that worked on Wall Street; accountants in general. It was such a cool thing to say someone was an accountant.’
So his switch to media wasn’t immediate. While he studied accounting, he attended a Graphics Design boot camp. According to him, this was what revived his passion for media. He then interned at Ovation magazine for about six months to a year before joining Smooth Promotions as a project manager for the first-ever Hip Hop World Awards (now The Headies) in March 2006.
He left HHW in October 2006 to join Consolidated Media Associates (CMA), owners of Soundcity, as a production manager for Soundcity Blast Magazine.
‘I worked at Soundcity for a long time. It allowed me to learn the business of broadcasting. I must commend my boss for trusting me at a very young age with that task. I had to bring in an editor, writers, photographers to put out the first edition of Soundcity Blast Magazine. I was putting the team together, buying gear and equipment and publishing magazines. It was a fun thing to do. My colleagues probably wondered what I was doing. Because it was a new role at the time, but I enjoyed it. It gave me a lot of zest and zeal, but I ran with it to make it what it was.’
He was responsible for the quarterly production of the magazine, working with the editorial team, business unit, marketing team, photography, and creative design team to create the print presence of Soundcity. Several Nigerian artists like Banky W, Sasha P, Terry G, and 9ice graced the magazine covers. In 2010, Soundcity Blast won Magazine of the Year at the Future Awards and was nominated again in 2011.
While functioning as the magazine’s production manager, Olamide was also the Special Projects Manager at CMA and led the establishment and successful run of the Soundcity MTN Campus Blast launched in 2007. The concert featured Nigerian artistes touring campuses to perform for thousands of students nationwide. Artistes like 2Face, 9ice and P-Square were on the roaster. He spent three years as the magazine production manager before transferring to the broadcast division.
Nigeria’s television space has grown tremendously over the past few years. Nigeria’s TV revenue market is expected to gross $903 million by 2023, according to PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook report released in October 2019. And Soundcity is one of the leading stations spearheading this growth.
Olamide became the Head of Programming for Soundcity Television in March 2009 at its launch. He created the music shows and directed the programming that Soundcity quickly became famous for. It was as though Olamide could see into the heart of Nigerians, filling an entertainment need that no one else was doing at that time.
Soundcity presenter Moet Abebe described him as a visionary. ‘You could say he sees the future,’ she told Netng. ‘Because he has an eye for what people want, and he knows what people want to see on TV. He knows when something will be a success.’
Consolidated Media Associates (CMA) Group reaches audiences in more than 50 countries, with annual revenue of $11.39 million, according to Dun & Bradstreet, an American company providing commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. And as the brand grew, so did Olamide.
In September 2011, he was appointed Group Channels producer for ONTV, Spice TV, and Televista – all of which are television affiliates under CMA. By August 2013, he became the Group Channels manager, and the company added the running of ONMAX, TrybeTV, Access 24 & Urban TV & Radio under his wing.
On November 1, 2014, Olamide tied the knot with his partner, Segilola Latinwo, an intellectual property lawyer, at a beautiful ceremony in Lagos with colleagues and friends in attendance.
Tajudeen Adepetu, CEO of Consolidated Media Associates, said Olamide’s growth was due to his brilliance in carrying out his work. ‘He’s a brilliant young man with so much to give to the industry,’ Adepetu said. ‘It’s very difficult to say that one finds a negative thing to say about someone like him. For every assignment, he brings something to it. He’s that kind of person that when you give an assignment, you can go to bed with both eyes closed because you know he’s handling it.’
So when the prestigious Soundcity Music Video Awards (SMVA) came off its break in 2016, it was natural that Olamide was in charge of production, which he did for the first three editions to much acclaim.
‘We had seen watered-down versions of these ideas,’ Olamide told me. ‘But I didn’t care; we had to be the best in the game. It is impossible to grab people’s attention without giving them excellent enjoyable entertainment content. Although I cannot take credit for everything, I had a brilliant extensive team at my disposal.’
All these were enough to throw Olamide into the spotlight, but he remained reserved. Although he was widely travelled, you wouldn’t know what he looked like if you hadn’t worked with him before. This suited him just fine. Being in the media space and sharing the same name with an artiste allowed Olamide to do what he does best – make magic from the shadows. More often than not, he gets mistaken for the other Olamide online, and people send him songs or ask him to help. ‘I always claim he is my cousin,’ he tells me. ‘We share the same name, he grew up in Bariga, and I think he is from Ijebu-Ode as well.’
In 2019, Olamide Adedeji left Consolidated Media Associates after spending 13 years with the company. He established Made by Massive – a media production company under which he produced live shows and events, including Big Brother Naija: Pepper Dem and Big Brother Naija: Lockdown live shows, Soundcity MVP Awards, Wizkid’s Made In Lagos Festival, Afrobeat Festival With Femi and Seun Kuti and more.
Captain Tunde Demuren, Pilot and good friend, says Olamide is a producer like none other. ‘Just recently, we did the Budweiser Smooth Kings Remix together, and I would always work with him anytime. He is one of the brightest minds you can work with. He has a particular attention to detail and professionalism with the work that he does. When we work on projects together, I don’t have to worry because I know that he’s got the job done. He’s also very caring, and working with him is very fun.’
Event production is challenging in Nigeria. When you try to do a highly sophisticated project in a very unsophisticated environment like ours, it sets you up for loads of challenges. From power supply to the proper infrastructure, pulling off a great show requires patience, skills and tenacity. But Olamide has been able to pull it off one show at a time.
‘It was a thing of all the experience I had gathered over the years. And it is also ensuring that one can put all of that to work. It was building a business with it, getting the best clientele to tap into the kind of visions I had. I wanted to do these things to show people that it is possible. These things are possible here in Nigeria. You know it’s a lot of work. It takes double the work to pull things off here because you don’t have all the resources and infrastructure you need. Still, we have to show our African tenacity. That if you give us the opportunity, we will get it done.’
In May 2020, Olamide launched Bounce Networks, an internet media company with television, radio and digital landmarks in six major cities, including London, Lagos, New York, Accra, Johannesburg and Dar Es Salaam. A global brand with interest in young talent in Africa. The network houses Bounce Radio – an internet radio station curating music worldwide and B.Side Magazine – the editorial arm documenting young Africans’ music, culture, and lifestyle.
When they launched, I was fascinated by their leveraging of young talents to spearhead their idea of a global media company.
Why Bounce?
Why not? Interesting, when you ask it that way. First of all, it’s just a name. But I remember when I was ideating the entire concept of Bounce. I think I was either listening to something, a song by Timbaland and maybe Missy Elliot. I think they had a song called Bounce. And I was like, ‘Oh snap! This is it’. I kept throwing it around my head, and it just felt like a nice name to have in the entertainment space.
In line with your global dream, I noticed you targeted major cities worldwide and stayed online. Do you have any vision of bringing Bounce to a terrestrial platform?
I barely think of things that would only fit our environment’s structure because we all know that as proudly Nigerian as we want to be, success is if we can make exportable brands. So for me, I would like to see a home-grown brand with footprints in other parts of the world. So I was very deliberate about it. And with technology, it made it easier. Our audience is the digital audience. Most millennials and Gen Z are online, and for them, it’s all about click, tap, swipe, share. So we stayed in that area. But we will play in the local space with a localised version of the brand.
Since Bounce orients itself with music, I already imagine the calibre of festivals you would host along the line.
Yes, we are, oh gosh! I wish I could go off the record, but we are planning some exciting things in the years to come.
Do you think Africa as a whole is reaching a place where we can become the music world power?
Absolutely, without a doubt. 1000%. We have everything it takes to be that world-class, number one. We have everything we need. We only struggle with achieving these things because of certain important factors that draw every African back. Bad economy, bad governance, bad politics. You know, the fundamentals that affect our big picture. Otherwise, we’d be up there with the rest of them. Just imagine an African country where everything works as it should. If everything works out fine, people will enjoy entertainment. You can’t have poverty in the land and expect people to enjoy entertainment truly. They will only use it as a means to escape their reality. But the minute you can solve all those problems, it’s better. Entertainment is easy; it is an experience. Once you remove all those problems, you will see how we will flourish.
Like I tell people, solve the power problem, and you will see how creativity will come to you. You won’t have to worry about things. Do you know how problematic it is to hear that hum from your generator every day affecting your creativity? These little things, the tiny boxes of chaos we tend not to notice that are very problematic. But the minute you take away those fundamental problems, you will see how we will flourish. For me, that’s it. I know we can get there; even with all these problems, it will just take a longer time. And with the tenacity of the African people, I mean, the sky’s the limit.
What worries you the most about our present media space?
My biggest fear is the brain drain that will happen in the next couple of years. Every day, we keep losing people to well-established companies. There’s nothing you can do to stop them, and you can’t control their drive or limit them to the scope of your environment. It won’t be fair to them. But imagine these rockstars of talent that we can keep here in Nigeria. Imagine the possibilities of what would happen. So it’s simple, if we fix the land, we will enjoy more of what we already have. I’m very optimistic, so I hope it turns out great.
With 15 years of experience across broadcasting, live performances and media production under his belt, Olamide‘s determination to change the face of entertainment in Nigeria gives us hope that someday, we will be atop the show business food chain.
As for Olamide Adedeji, a new journey has begun, and he is ready to make that vision a reality, one production at a time.