Entertainment
Mr Eazi to go bullish on tech investment as he visits Estonia
Nigerian musician and entrepreneur Oluwatosin Ajibade, popularly known as Mr Eazi, has just returned from Estonia, where he attended and spoke at the country’s Latitude59 tech conference.
Billed as “the flagship startup and tech event of the world’s first digital society,” Latitude59 brought together over 400 investors and 800 startup reps in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, from 24-26 May.
As part of the conference’s speakers program, Mr Eazi discussed his tech and creative journey — and the prospects of the African orange economy via smart governance — in a roundtable with former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
While in Estonia, he also met with industry leaders and tech entrepreneurs, including Ahti Heinla, a founding developer of Skype and the founder and CTO of robotics company Starship Technologies; and Markus Villig, the founder and CEO of mobility company Bolt. Mr Eazi with Ahti Heinla, founding developer of Skype and founder of Starship Technologies
“My last-minute trip to Estonia ended up being one of my favourite 24 hours this year,” said Mr Eazi.
“At the conference, I spoke about my career and journey from founder to musician to an investor, with my own VC fund,Zagadat Capital, investing in tech businesses.”
That journey appears to be of great interest, as Latitude59 is not the only international business conference to host Mr Eazi recently.
Earlier in May, he was a speaker at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, where he shared his views on African music’s role in developing and stimulating the continent’s creative economy.
Paramount on Eazi’s mind in Estonia was the potential for business alliances in tech.
Estonia presently has the most start-ups per capita of any European nation. It is ranked first in the region for its business environment by the Emerging Europe IT Competitiveness Index.
“[Former president] Ilves shared how Estonia has been positioning itself to be friendly for tech founders and entrepreneurs through its digital e-residency program,” Eazi said.
“You can set up your company digitally in Estonia, and become an e-resident.”
Eazi, who via Zagadat Capital recently invested in Decagon, a company that trains engineers in Nigeria and pairs them with jobs worldwide, sees a major opportunity for African tech talent to gain a foothold in overseas markets such as Estonia.
“You have over 10 million smart, young people getting out of university each year in need of jobs. Now, Africa — not just Nigeria, but Kenya, Ghana, Benin, Rwanda, etc — our continent has the prospect to become the highest net exporter of technology talent.”
While this was Eazi’s first visit to Estonia, he is not a stranger to the country’s business environment. His VC fund Zagadat Capital has already invested in the mobile payment service PawaPay, which employs a number of engineers in Estonia.
“I believe this is my first of many trips to Estonia, and I am excited at the fun stuff and ideas we will execute together,” he stated.
Iconic Nigerian singer Peter Okoye has responded to allegations made by his twin brother Paul over ownership of a new song “Winning.”
Peter Okoye shared a detailed account of the song’s creation, clarifying his role and collaboration with others, including Ghanaian producer Vampire and songwriter Calypso.
He questioned Paul’s claims, citing their agreed-upon creative process and Paul’s removal of his (Peter’s) vocals from joint songs.
Peter also addressed his temporary break from music, stating he took time to recharge before returning with “Winning.”
He wrote on X: “If you have followed my journey as a solo artiste and even before, you will notice that I give people their due credit where necessary as I am a firm believer in teamwork; I know my strengths, where I need assistance or guidance I am not afraid to ask or work with those who are strong in the areas I am not; this includes the process of creating music, executing concepts and ideas etc. I will always credit people for their contributions to my projects.
“Sometime in June 2022, I stumbled upon a producer based in Ghana named Vampire, and my team and I also personally reached out to him via DM, that I liked his work and was interested in working with him. Before getting him to Lagos, I presented the idea of this producer to my twin brother and our team, getting their buy-in before I got him flight tickets and flew him to Lagos.“
It was when he got into Lagos I asked if he would be open to working on P-SQUARE’s next album project, that the 5 songs I had penned down from my end to be presented to our A&R team for the album project were: JAIYE, WINNING, FIND SOMEBODY, LEGENDARY, and ATTENTION, based on tracks he had produced.
“We started with my own 5 songs that needed to be submitted for PSQUARE’s album, which he produced for me: The idea for WINNING came from one of his beats that I discovered. I came up with the idea of changing the chord progression from the original version to what it is today with my own producer Goldswarm who is the co-producer of the song WINNING.
“I had also engaged a songwriter known as CALYPSO who wrote and composed the song WINNING and sent it to me on the beats through a voice note. And we started working on the song. Mind you, he worked on some other songs that were to make the album as well, so my brother was aware of his input to the production as we were all in the studio during this period.
“Then when my twin brother heard the song WINNING, which we had already created the hook/chorus for, he then wanted to start creating a verse. Our agreed-on process for each song presented by us was: arrange the song, leave a verse for the other person, then we both harmonise the chorus and refrain bits together. He wasn’t supposed to until Calypso and I finished it as part of my own song submission to the LEGENDARY ALBUM.
“After that, we finished and shared verses among ourselves. I do not wish to get into details of why the album didn’t see the light of day till date but it takes a different level of psychosis for one to steal what is theirs already; as since the release of this song, I have been labeled and called all sorts online and they have even gone as far as asking for the song to be taken down on various platforms, to what end?
“It was never part of his 5, now 6 (according to him) songs for submission, yet when he felt I was not interested in making music because I chose my sanity over the constant berating and drama that seemed to come up over creative direction in the group.
“If it were his song, why do I have all the music data including initial conversations and picture/video evidence on the above-mentioned titles/songs? Which of his songs do I have its data in my possession in that case? All because he was hoping for me to quit music. Even when I learnt that he had removed my vocals on songs we did together, suggesting that he sing the entire songs including the ones that he planned to present for the album without my input (a very absurd idea as we both make up the duo not just the one), but we both perform them on stage, I begun to have a rethink of the entire situation. Let me leave this here.
“Maybe because I was not posting anything music-related on my social media page for over 4 months. He believes I have lost interest in music. I took a breather to get my mind and head in the right space and when that was done, my epiphany was WINNING!”.
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Peter Okoye reacts to alleged song ownership by twin brother
