'I'm not fighting D'banj' – Don Jazzy

By Osagie Alonge

It’s been a few weeks since top producer Don Jazzy confirmed the rumours of his separation from Mo’Hits. After nine years of working with pop star D’banj and building a label, both men have now gone their separate ways.

As is the case with most separations, things didn’t end too well; close friends of D’banj and Don Jazzy say it wasn’t the most amicable separation.

‘Don Jazzy was pissed off when D’banj changed the keys and locked him out of their Lekki mansion. D’banj was also mad at Don Jazzy for slowing down on the production of his album’, a close friend of both parties said.

However, Don Jazzy recently took to twitter, as he often does, to clear the air on whether they he and former partner D’banj were in a war or not.

‘wow @ beef. can u beef ur son bro? RT @Princebob_ineh: @DONJAZZY are u really beefing dbanj……wana hear 4rm d source’, Don Jazzy replied a Twitter fan when asked if there was any bad blood between him and D’banj.

It’s been a long time coming for them though; Don Jazzy in a recent interview with HipHopWorld Magazine went down memory lane, talking about how Mo’Hits all began.

‘I really liked his belief…’

Don Jazzy and D’banj met some 10 years ago while the latter was understudying with the JJC & 419 squad in the UK. According to Don Jazzy, D’banj wasn’t really much of a singer or rapper but was very enthusiastic about making music. He would follow them to shows as a hype man but when the group dissolved and everybody went their ways; D’banj stuck with a penniless Don Jazzy and convinced them to start off their own outfit.

‘We almost sold Mo’Hits Records to Storm Records…’

Funny, surprising but true; Don Jazzy says when they returned to Nigeria, amidst all the flashy videos and all, there wasn’t really any money in their pockets. In an effort to still keep the label floating, they tried signing with any of the ‘big labels’ back then – Question Mark, Kennis Music but opted to work with Storm Records. Don Jazzy would work as a producer while Storm would help in terms of funds for promoting Mo’Hits – a N1m deal. But somehow, Storm kept prolonging matters and both parties couldn’t a final agreement till the something remarkable happened…

‘From one million to 20 million naira! Now, we know why God was delaying the signing of the one million deal…’

Don Jazzy says what changed everything was the N20m endorsement deal with energy drink Power Fist. Suddenly Storm’s N1m deal was off the table, and new horizons had opened up. And that’s how the climb to the top began. In the words of the Don ‘The bank account never read anything lower than that from then. We thank God’.