When Davido started making music, he wanted to be in the background making beats and records for others, but by a twist of fate, he became a performing artiste and worked so hard to climb up the ladder.
As seen in a decade of his career, his success, energy, and work ethic are admirable and inspirational. Being the son of a billionaire, he didn’t have to put so much effort into his work, but he keeps working like his next meal depends on what he does.
“Davido is not the first who comes from an affluent background, but there’s something just different about him,” an award-winning journalist and writer, Eromo Egbejule says in ‘We Rise: The Davido Story’, a new documentary by Netng, released on January 15, 2022.
In 10 years of his career, Davido’s name now stands for more than just music that brought him into the global limelight. In the new documentary by Netng, we discovered the other things his name now stands for and how his remarkable life can inspire you.
Let’s take a look.
1. Take risks
Davido started from making beats to doing club gigs, but his desire to make music made him forfeit his education in the United States and start shuttling between Nigeria and the U.S, to run in the music circles. This constantly pitted him against his billionaire father. But it was a risk worth taking.
In 10 years of his music career, he has cemented his place as one of Africa’s most important contemporary artistes, set up his record label Davido Music World (DMW), churned out hit after hit that have constantly climbed the top of music charts in Nigeria and globally.
2. Don’t give up. Work harder
Industry pundits didn’t expect him to succeed. They tagged him the rich kid who was just passing the time with music and would soon fizzle out of the scene, but Davido has stayed relevant for a decade, and today, he is one of the most successful artistes of his generation.
“Whether or not you think it’s because he’s rich that he’s gotten to where he is, he hustles like he has no money and rent is due today,” Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi said in ‘We Rise: The Davido Story’, a new documentary by Netng that premiered on January 15, 2022.
3. Use criticism to reinvent yourself
Davido’s life has taught us that no matter how you try to stay humble and mix with the crowd, critics will always find fault in whatever you do. Instead of hating them or beating yourself up, use their criticism to get better.
“With Yankee passport, they call me local,” he said in ‘Summer Body’ with Olamide in 2017. Wizkid’s response to that line was a re-echo of Davido’s critics’ sentiments about his voice. “Yankee passport no be baba blue, e no dey cure frog voice,” he tweeted in 2017.
Well, Davido took that again and made a pendant with the head of a frog. What do they say about when life throws you a lemon? He made lemonade from it. He has surmounted challenges, loss, grief, controversies to become a superstar hitmaker. Not so many Nigerian artistes have gone through that wringer and survived it.
4. “We Rise By…” Take care of people around you
If, after all these, you eventually strike it rich, be constantly reminded that you rode to that level through the support, sacrifice, and efforts of others. Many people easily forget when they climb to the top, but Davido has shown that dragging others up the ladder is also a step higher for the lifter.
‘We rise by lifting others,’ he said at the Headies Award in 2018 as he received the ‘Artiste of the Year’ award. Through his DMW record label, Mayorkun, Peruzzi, and many other rising stars and non-music artistes have climbed the ladder of fame and success.
For his 29th birthday, Davido pulled a stunt most will deem impossible. He showed the true extent of his impact and his social capital in action by raising ₦200 million from fans and friends, adding ₦50 million to the fund, and pledging the entire sum to orphanages instead of using the fund to clear his new Rolls Royce as he initially planned.
This is only one of the hundreds of stories that make up Davido’s remarkable life, as confirmed by media personality and former OAP at Beat FM, Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi in ‘We Rise: The Davido Story’. “He is generally a happy guy who just wants to have fun and at the same time help others. He’s probably one of my favourite people to interview because he’s very open and honest. He just doesn’t care, and he’s going to say what he has to say,” Gbemi said.
“Every time Davido comes to this station (Beat FM, Lagos), there’s a crowd outside the gate. It doesn’t happen for everybody because they know he will do something for the boys and it’s also evident with the way he carries his entire entourage.”
An award-winning journalist and writer, Eromo Egbejule added: “I think there are many reasons why it appears as though Davido is helping people more. People around him say that he has a nice heart, so I think there’s that hunger of, ‘I made it I’m going to help people,’ his contemporaries may have that but he seems to be the one showing it the most.”