By Peju Akande and Toni Kan
His children, Oyindamola and Oyinlola, describe him as the best ever; a super hero dad who is so giving they wonder whether they are not asking for too much.
His wife, Jennifer, has described him as the best DJ in Africa whom no other DJ can outshine.
His older brothers, Tunde and Tayo Amu, say he is a very focused professional who has made a huge impact in the industry while childhood friend Godwin Ogwa tells us that Jimmy Jatt’s career so far has been wonderful.
Proteges, peers, collaborators and the competition describe him in glowing terms.
For Sound Sultan, Jimmy Jatt is the ‘Ali Baba’ of DJs. He jumpstarted my career while 2face calls him ‘a pioneer, a legend, a god father.’
Jacob Akinyemi Johnson aka JAJ says Jimmy Jatt’s success is hinged on the fact that he is always ‘reinventing himself and helped put DJs on a very high pedestal. He’s no different from a very successful banker or an accountant. He’s a marathoner.’
For Ali Baba, Jimmy Jatt has had a huge impact on the industry by ‘setting standards and creating platforms.’
Obi Asika describes Jimmy Jatt ‘as a legend and a branding expert; a man who has transitioned through the technology, through the ages, through the sounds, and still stayed hot. Jimmy is a perfectionist.’
Olisa Adibua is no less effusive. Jimmy’s career, he avers, has been ‘spectacular basically because of his humility and his quality and skill,’ sentiments that are echoed by DJ Mixmaster Tee who says ‘Jimmy Jatt is a household name. There’s no other Dj. Forget about it. He’s done everything as per deejaying.’
Despite these effusive encomiums, DJ Jimmy Jatt is reticent when it comes to speaking about himself or what many suppose are his groundbreaking and avant-garde contributions to the industry.
‘I can’t talk about my legacy,’ he says. ‘That is for people to talk about.’
And what a rich legacy for a man who parlayed his passion for music into a ground-breaking career and a globally recognized brand.
Ever quick to acknowledge others and give honour where it is due, Jimmy Jatt says ‘I owe whatever I have become today to my brothers and I will show you how. They were quick to realise that aside from breakdancing, I had an aptitude for music and disc jockeying and they encouraged it.
My brothers were not DJs and they were not even pretending to be DJs. They were just mixing tapes for people but I took it beyond that and when they now realized that I was taking it serious they got a DJ to come and school me on that.
I remember that they got a DJ called Kachi, he used to play at Princes Night Club in Yaba. Kachi now became, will I say, my turn table teacher at the end of the day. So, that was now how I got into it.’
He was not Nigeria’s first DJ and everyone acknowledges that fact but what he did was to up the game, raise the ante, break new grounds, chart new courses and be as innovative as possible.
He built a brand when he did not even fully understand what it meant. He stayed true to the game, refusing to become a resident club DJ or radio station staff. He wanted to make disc jockeying a profession, a respectable profession at that.
And he has achieved that because as JAJ says ‘right now with his success, he can rub shoulders with the crème de la crème in society, which he does.’
But Jimmy Jatt is not all about proving a point or showing off his laurels. He is, to borrow terms used by long time collaborators and friends Obi Asika and Olisa Adibua ‘very chilled.’
Tall, lanky and so shy he never goes out without glasses and a hat, he speaks in an almost laconic manner, as if the very effort at speech tires him.
‘I am not Nigeria’s first DJ. I am not even the best, I just understand the music and I helped change perceptions about the profession.’
While we were working on his biography, someone mentioned casually that Jimmy Jatt had just been flown First Class to Houston for a show.
When we bring it up weeks later, Jimmy Jatt laughs and says ‘na where you hear that one?’
He doesn’t disprove or confirm, he just moves on to the next topic and that is what he is, always eager to talk about everything and everybody but himself.
His wife, his daughters and his friends call him a professional with a punishing work ethic.
And Jimmy confirms it himself when he talks about going back home early one morning from a show and falling asleep on the steering just as he rounded the bend into Surulere, where he lived at that time.
‘When I woke up people had gathered and the airbag was in my face. Fear catch me. I was so tired after I dropped off the South African DJ at his hotel but I just wanted to get home.’
These days with two grown kids and a lot more to give, Jimmy Jatt takes it a lot easy. ‘These days I just take a room in a hotel and rest before I go home.
For a man who has played gigs to huge crowds all over the world, home is his biggest stage, the place he wants to be most, a fact his daughter Oyindamola takes time to emphasise.
‘I’m not sure a lot of people know this but he’s family oriented, he’s a family type of guy. When he’s not working, he’s at home with us. He’s not the type that goes, ‘oh I’m going out with my friends’ or something like that. When he’s not working, he’s always at home.’
But while home might be best, Jimmy Jatt has killed it on many stages and twenty five years on has left indelible footprints on the sands of the music industry.
He is a game changer and a trail blazer, an innovator who made a side gig become the Marquee event.
Starting out from making mix tapes in Obalende and earning N1,000 to play a gig for NIB, Jimmy has become the king of DJs playing to sold out arenas and picking up music awards.
‘I started doing the Road Block because that was the platform open to boys like me and it turned into a Mecca of sorts with thousands of people and it was from there that the whole idea of Independent records started.’
For a young man living in Obalende, Jimmy Jatt’s idea of a street carnival was in many ways pivotal to the emergence of contemporary Nigerian music because it was at the road block that many leading lights of Nigerian entertainment were discovered from Daddy Showkey to Daddy Fresh, Junior and Pretty to Ruff Rugged and Raw, even 2face and Sound Sultan and a slew of others.
The Road Block was the flower while JATT studios was the nectar that drew them in.
‘Now, what is the legacy of the Road Block?’ Jimmy Jatt asks as he leans back into his seat. ‘What did it manage to achieve in those years? What it did was that it created a platform for budding artistes; those people that their kind of music couldn’t be submitted to the major record labels.
It was at the Road Block that we first heard ‘Monica’ by Junior and Pretty. That first year ‘Monica’ was the biggest thing that happened. So they came and they saw Junior and Pretty. Obi was there, Olisa was there, JAJ was there.
So, when people say you pioneered this and you pioneered that, I know it’s not because I was the first person to do it but rather because the platform which I created at that time was probably the biggest and broadest of that time.’
He did not just provide a platform that was big, he helped nurture talents because he had an uncanny facility for spotting trends, for knowing who would and would not blow.
2face is quick to acknowledge that. ‘Jimmy was the first person that ever paid Plantashun Boiz money…first person, way back, this is ‘98.’
So, he did not just provide a big platform, he helped nurture a new corps of music artistes which is why Sound Sultan can say without equivocation; ‘He jumpstarted my career.’
Most of the things he has done and achieved have been borne out of a knowledge of self and deep conviction; he loved music so he became a Dj; he likes to wear hats so he set up the biggest and most successful artists merchandize business in Nigeria, the Triple J Snapbacks; he saw artistes looking for a platform he set up the Road Block; he met a DJ in Kaduna he helped him move to Lagos.
Jimmy Jatt is the first Nigerian Dj to put out an album. His 2007 debut album, Definition, remains the biggest collaborative musical album project in Nigeria with over 50 artistes and his follow up album, Industry is set to eclipse that record with over 70 artists.
Always in the now, Jimmy was the first Nigerian DJ to act as judge on a tv talent show. He was first DJ to headline big events with musical acts playing supporting roles.
A darling of corporate Nigeria, Jimmy Jatt was also the first Nigerian DJ to get a product endorsement and brand ambassadorship.
Respected and well regarded by peers, fans and the competition, Jimmy Jatt has stayed relevant for almost 30 years during which he has been at the top of his game, adapting with the currents, heralding new epochs and defining fresh eras.
And as reticent as he might be, Jimmy Jatt realizes that he has brought not just respect to the profession, but a defining presence as a constant in a Class of One.
Defining himself Cool DJ Jimmy Jatt says ‘I am old school, I am new school, I am no school…I am Third Mainland Bridge because that bridge will always be needed. At a point, it was Ikeja that was bubbling. All the good clubs were in Ikeja, now they are on the Island but one constant fact is that you will cross that bridge on your way out and back and that bridge is Jimmy Jatt.’
How cool can a man get?
