Nigerian afrobeats queen Tiwa Savage has admitted that she wouldn’t advise her son, Jamal, to follow in her footsteps and do music.
The mother of one disclosed this while speaking about motherhood and career challenges in an exclusive interview on Afrobeats Intelligence, hosted by Joey Akan.
Speaking about her son’s potential interest in music, Tiwa said she wouldn’t want him to follow in her footsteps, citing the industry’s high demands and low success rates. She also expressed concerns about the mental and financial strain artists often face.
On the challenges artists face in the industry, especially when it comes to staying relevant, Tiwa admitted that it is challenging to sustain a successful career even after landing hits.
She said, “The rate of success is very slim, not only that, if you’re blessed to [have hits], your life span, it might not be, 10 years. It might not even be five years, so it’s even harder to sustain a career and to be lucrative. Mentally, as well, imagine being an artist and you’re not really making as much as people think you are but you have to live like you are.”
The award-winning singer also spoke about how difficult it is to balance her career and family life. She referenced the lockdown when her home studio blurred the lines between work and family time.
She revealed that she often worked late into the night, limiting the time she had to spend with her son.
“During lockdown, I had a studio (at home) and I was actually trying to learn how to record myself and then I realised that I was always there. 2 a.m. in the morning, and sometimes I’m not even recording, I’m just listening to music, watching something,” she recounted.
“Initially I was not spending time with my son especially, and it wasn’t good for me ‘cos I couldn’t separate work from home ‘cos work was in my home. And I didn’t like that; I wanted to be able to leave work and come home, I wanted to be able to separate work from home, especially for my son.”
Tiwa also reflected on the pressure she faced in the early days of her career when people wanted her to fit into a specific mould by branding her “African Rihanna.”
She also recounted the scepticism her style of blending R&B and Afrobeats faced with some labels doubting its commercial viability.
“Everyone was like, ‘you’re a great singer, you look amazing.’ It was more like, let’s think about it, but I never got the call back,” she added.
She also recounted in an interview how her ex-husband and former manager Tunji Balogun changed her style, encouraged her to lose weight, work out, and adopt a more glamorous look to fit the market’s demands.
Savage noted that she initially conformed to the new image, which attracted both attention and criticism, before she eventually found her footing in the Nigerian music industry.
She said, “The sexiness in my 2014 single ‘Wanted’ music video felt groundbreaking at that time. Because I just got married and there’s a lot of press saying, ‘She’s not going to be desirable anymore. She’s finished. Her time is gone. There are new people on the scene.’ So, I was just like, let me do something crazy.
“That was me being rebellious. I was like, Oh! You guys think I’m not sexy anymore? To be honest, that wasn’t the aim, to just try to be sexy. Because naturally, I’m not. Naturally, I’m a tomboy. But again, TJ [Tunji Balogun] saw that there was a gap in the market and he was just like, you’ve to lose weight, you’ve to go to the gym, you’ve to start waxing your eyebrows. You’ve to start wearing wigs. He literally changed my whole appearance. I was not like that in L.A. when he met me.
“I used to be a songwriter in the studio wearing baggy jeans and t-shirt. And he literally changed that. I don’t think that he thought there was going to be a backlash. He was just like, let’s give them the African Rihanna or Beyoncé. I was like, okay, let’s go ahead. And we came back to Nigeria, but my fashion sense attracted criticism. Then, I ran back to L.A.
“I was really bad. I would go to shows and I would be waiting backstage and they wouldn’t call me because maybe the governor’s wife had said I can’t come up or they’d say, make sure you don’t wear any of those your skimpy dresses. I’m not making this up. There was a time, ‘Love Me’ was banned on TV. I was discouraged. I remembered Bizzle called me and told me ladies were loving me, so I came back to Nigeria. I’ve told the story where I went to all the labels and they all said no, Storm Records, Mo’Hits, Banky W’s EME, everyone”.
