Kwame’s Interview

kwame

Keeps: Sir, I know you are a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry.

Kwame : Hmm (laughs)

Keeps: For your fans out there and everyone who wants to know who Kwame is, could you give a brief intro about who you are and how you’ve come this far?

Kwame: Well, basically they call me Kwame, real name is Femi Aderibigbe. I’m just a guy trying to make a difference in the entertainment industry and yes I’m lucky I’ve got God on my side, you know, so things have been… yeah sometimes smooth sometimes rough but you have to be consistent you have to stay in it and all that and the longer you stay in it the better you get and the more people take you seriously and I guess that’s what is happening.

Keeps: I guess everybody knows about Nigezie

Kwame :Wow!

Keeps - As a CEO of the Organization what will you say about Nigezie?

Kwame- Nigezie is a 24 hour musical and life style channel on HiTV, so if you have HiTV you tune in to channel 15 you’ll see Nigezie 24 hours of the day, we don’t go away. 24 hours every day we are on and you can see the best of Nigerian music and a lot of life style content too and in the U.K we are on channel 204 on Sky, you can check us out there too, we have few terrestrial windows on some key stations across Nigeria and we hope to take it … replicate that in some other African countries too. We are trying to build a global brand that is what we are trying to build not just a Nigerian brand the journey is gonna be long and its gonna be hard it is a marathon race it is not a sprint so we just go on and conquer new territory as we go that is the game plan.

Keeps: It looks as if your judgment counts in the industry because every other competition you are among the panel of judges.

Kwame: (Laughs) I don’t know about all the competitions.

Keeps: I have seen you on so many competitions

Kwame : Yes we did New Faces of Nigerian Television that is our own Nigezie initiative. We used that basically to select our presenters, we wanted presenters but we wanted to go around and look around and see what talent we can get around Nigeria and we have done that. I’m one of the judges on Project Fame right now (Laughs)

Keeps: What is it about your judgment, I know there must be something in you that everybody sees and they will now say ok let’s make him one of the judges.

Kwame: Well they are probably the ones that see it I don’t see it I just try to be as professional as possible. I have an ear for music I have an ear for quality, quality in all spheres of entertainment industry and I have been doing this for over 15 years of my life professionally. And I guess the rest is just God ministering to you and say ok let this boy find favour with you (Laughs) I just do my thing and I don’t know who likes it or not I just do my thing.

Keeps: But you know the Nigerian economy is not rosy let’s be sincere but for you to actually move with Nigezie and you seem to be breaking through all the time what is the success formula?

Kwame: Yeah there is no formula, it’s all God. He gives strength, wisdom and power to those that He chooses I guess I am just one of the recipients. There is nothing like hard work you have to stay consistent you have to stay focused you have to be determined because there are no structures so to speak, you have to create your own structures as you go and you have to be consistent . As you make money, you have to invest back in your business so that you can grow. You don’t just make money from your business and you use it to go and start buying cars and you know, living the big life, you have to invest it back so that you can grow at fast rate.

Keeps: And I can see the way you relate with your workers…

Kwame: Yeah, we are all mates [laughs] we are trying to be like one big family, everybody is important everybody has their own … what they do. You won’t see me come and everybody is running … Oga is here, Oga is here nah, we sit down, we abuse ourselves , we yab… but the thing is when it comes to work they know that is a serious business and everybody becomes serious when we are at meetings and I’m yabbing people you know then that this is the Oga, right now you don’t see me going around looking at what this one is doing what that one is doing because I believe they are all professionals and they have received a great amount of training so I guess they know what they do. I stand to allow them to do their job.

Keeps: And what is your message to the young entrepreneur out there somebody who wants to be like the next Kwame because we can’t be talking about Jigga or Puffy or whatever, you are our own Puffy now I am serious so what is your message to all those guys?

Kwame - (Laughs) the next Kwame I don’t know (Laughs) what you have to do is to just stay focused and be determined. There are three words that I coined that encapsulate the whole essence of entrepreneurship. Courage: you need to be courageous because people will try to discourage you, so you need to be courageous you need to be bold you need to look at people in the face you need to be like David because there are so many Goliaths out there and they are all wanting to kill you, bring you down or destroy you so you need courage. You need tenacity. Tenacity is …you never ever believe that anything is impossible you never say die when they hit you, you come back when they hit you, you fall you come back one day someone was like what do you want me to do for you, that is tenacity. Then there is vision, vision is the third one and vision is seeing what other people don’t see taking yourself out of all the hardship… Ok there is no money, there is no job there is no this … they don’t know me, taking yourself out of that and looking at how can I come in and people will notice me… everything that people are doing already what can I do differently so that I will get noticed that is vision and you must have courage and tenacity to follow that vision to the end. If you have all that it is just a matter of time before things start happening.

Keeps: Thank you very much

Kwame : Thank you very much