Nigerian street-hop artist Zlatan Ibile recently shared with media personality Samuel Eni why he used the car he received as a prize from a music competition as a taxi.
In 2014, he won the Airtel-sponsored One Mic talent show held in Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he got a car as one of the prizes.
He explained that due to financial difficulties, he had to resort to using the car as a taxi and was unable to afford the expenses required to maintain it.
The singer also mentioned that it took him an additional four years to attain career success after being aided by Olamide and Davido following his victory in the music competition.
He said, “I qualified among the two to go represent my school in the grand finale [of a music competition]. So, like tactically out of 140 candidates. With just two tracks, I just started rapping. I know nothing about music. I just started writing and downloading beats online. And out of 140 people, I don’t know how God did it, I won a brand new car when I was 19 years old. My first semester in school.”
“From there, I just sat down and said to myself, if I can win a brand new car, seems God is telling me something. I took it seriously from there. After that, it took me another four years after I won the car. I ended up using the car as [a] taxi because I could not maintain the car or maintain the lifestyle. Before, Olamide saw me one day and hit me up on Instagram. He called me up and made a song for me, for free,[and also] came for the video shoot for free. To me, that was like my breakthrough song in 2017.
“Davido saw the song [Body], and danced to it; the video was his first one million views on Instagram. And, he called me to come to his house. He made [a] song for me. I told him I don’t have money for [the] video. He gave me money for the video. After then, I made Zanku, and since then it has been blessings upon blessings.”
Zlatan is the chief executive officer and founder of Zanku Records.
