•Recounts humble beginnings, battle with inferiority complex before stardom

Oludipe Oluwasanmi David, professionally known as Spyro, is a Nigerian singer and songwriter, who gained widespread recognition after the release of his single ‘Billing’ which was released in July 2022. His global hit song ‘Who is your Guy?’ which was first released in November 2022 and re-released in March 2023 as a remix featuring Tiwa Savage has remained an anthem all over the world till date. With his recently released EP ‘The Men, The Boys and Your Guy’ still topping charts, Spyro also has music collaborations with notable acts across Africa. He recently spoke with NELLY IKWUONU and EUNICE OLALEYE about his craft and what makes him tick.

Beyond vocals and hit songs, who is Spyro?

I am a regular human being, a Jesus boy, and a very spiritual person. Spyro is jovial and playful. Spyro is a lot of things that you don’t get to see online. I’m thinking of bringing that part of Spyro online these days.

What part are you talking about?

A lot of this playful part. Some of my diehard fans know this. So, I intend to bring them online for people to see. Now, since stupidity makes money now in our world, let’s all get stupid together. I’m just kidding, by the way.

Being a pastor’s child who started in the church choir and became an assistant music director, how did that early foundation shape your discipline, sound and this genre of music you chose?

I grew up around music, especially in the church. So, there’s no way you listen to that many songs or you relate with that much music and you would not be possessed by music. I happened to grow up in Mushin and where I was staying, we had a lot of cassette sellers. That was a thing back then.

So, everywhere I turned to, music is playing. They’re playing Fuji, they’re playing gospel music. So, you are listening to Ayefele, Atorise, AjogbaJesu twins, Adegbodu twins.

At the same time, they’re playing 2Baba, a lot of this music. And then back at home, I was also exposed to gospel songs of Don Moen, Ron Connolly, Panam Percy Paul... there’s no way I could have escaped making music. It just became a thing for me. That’s what has inspired my type of music today because I describe my music as universal. I do any kind of music. I’m vast because I’ve taken in different genres.

Take us back to the early days before fame, what were the struggles like?

Everyone’s struggle is money. I was really concerned about what I would eat. That was like a major problem for me. While trying to push my music. I had known from an early age that I was going to do music. I started to push in that line, even though my father was not really supportive of it, which meant I had to do things on my own, and get a job after secondary school. I got a job selling recharge cards and I was paid N4,000. I saved the money to record in the studio. I paid for my first studio session in 2008.

It was a lot because I come from a humble background. I had to hide to do things; hide to go to the studio etc. Having to hide to do everything was another struggle. Fast forward to after finishing from university, having nowhere to stay. I had to squat in different places. I remember at some point I had my sponge in Oshodi. My clothes would be in Gbagada

At some point, I was ejected from where I stayed, I had nowhere to stay. I didn’t want to go home because I felt convenience was a killer of success. Is it how girls use my eyes to see ‘shege’? Is it how ugly I was back then? No one wanted to associate with me, I battled with an inferiority complex.

For anyone who has listened to songs like ‘Beautiful’, ‘Stand By You’, ‘No Gree for Anybody’, and ‘Only Fine Girl’, one would wonder what your creative process like and how those lyrics come to life.

I’m just very particular about relatability. Anytime I’m writing a song, I make it relatable to everyday life. When you hear songs like, ‘Who is your guy?’, It was me writing from a place of reality, because all these years while I was struggling there were times I survive because of friends who came through for me. ‘Beautiful’ was from a place of reality too. With ‘Billing’, it was from experiences that we all know. I just always like to touch on things that when you listen to it, you might not be able to place it, but it sounds familiar. I always want it to be relatable, even to your experiences in life.

Music icons have mentioned that the entertainment industry is highly capital intensive. So between big money for promos and quality, which of these do you think makes a hit song? Big money for promo or quality?

I think it’s both. Before now, I would have said quality, but these days you don’t even have to have quality to have a hit song, I started doing something lately where I would sing worship songs and post then people see it and say, ‘So Spyro can sing like this”.

We don’t really celebrate talent, it’s just about how much you have and how much you can relate with your audience, if you can relate with them on something bad that they can, that they all do, you are singing about ìgbó and many people smoke ìgbó, they gravitate towards that song. If you’re singing now about women, a lot of people like women, so it’s not about quality again, it’s about cruise. I feel like there should be a balance, if you weren’t talented then, you can’t blow. Then, it was 70 per cent talent, now it is like 10 per cent talent and 90 per cent funds.

You’ve made your stand on the use of dirty words, have you been pressured to use certain languages like that in your songs?

Of course, there would always be pressure, even pressure from team members, but as a person, you have to know what you want for yourself, because if you don’t have a direction, you will go every direction. So, I’ve figured out my way from a very young age that I want to do this by God, and anything that takes me from God, I don’t want to do it. I’ve known that from a very tender age, so coming into the industry, there was a lot of pressure, I remember narrating a story of where my team members insisted that I just go and do a song about a woman’s backside. I refused because that’s not my brand. I am not of that orientation.

Has that made you lose a major deal or collaboration?

Of course, not everybody would want to work with you because of what you stand for. For example, I have rules that, if we are working together and you’re working in my studio, there is no smoking of any sort, no use of certain words, and because of that, many people would want to not work with you because they see you as judgmental. I’m not saying you should not do it, but do it in your space. I’m advocating that in my own space, I want to keep it clean, that’s where people mix it up and say, oh, he’s judgmental and all that.

I believe that as artistes, we have influences. We influence a lot of people, and many look up to us, and we owe it to them to churn out content that promotes values and morals. We are in a generation where parents don’t care what you do as long as you bring money home, they are unable to tell you the truth to your face. We’re in a society where parents see their children doing wrong, but they cannot even call them to order because of the benefits that they get.

We’re in a society where our celebrities these days are dumb people, people that are not intelligent. They cannot hold intelligent conversations, if you bring them online now, they are just going to be making a fool of themselves. These are the people that young guys follow. So I’ve been doing a tour, going to secondary schools to speak to students, and when you get to secondary schools, you see that many children are not going to school anymore because they are seeing their icons dropping out of school, they just became celebrities by doing something stupid.

That is why someone would lie about being raped because they just want publicity. I would rather just stick to shining the light of morals and values.

We know you’ve navigated much of your career as an independent artiste. What’s the biggest challenge of being your own boss in an industry many say it usually favours big labels?

It’s not easy to run your thing by yourself, although as it comes with its own advantages, it definitely comes with disadvantages. The major thing is knowing your craft, and knowing what you want to achieve. I’m not in a rush to achieve things, sometimes when you go the God way, it takes time, there was a time I was under pressure, it was, ah, look at Shalipopi we came out together, look at this person, we came out together, they’ve gone further, and all those things, i just had to come to a resolve that I’m fine with the impact that I’m making, so I don’t have to compare myself with people, Grace different from Grace, the fact that Burner Boy is where he is today doesn’t mean that I’m not also gonna get there, but it might just take more time, I’ve just come to that resolve, being a record label owner is not an easy thing, because aside from being the artist, you now have to make lot of decisions

I’ve had to turn down a very big deal, it was at an award show in America, and the CEO of one of the biggest labels just said, I want this guy, and I went to do research about the guy, and I saw that this guy is a strong man in that world, you understand, I’m like, no, I’m not going to do this, because what the devil does is lure you in with something that he knows you want, and then you get in, and then it’s hard to get out, a lot of these contracts that artists are signing, they are signing their lives to the devil, in this contract, they will tell you not to go public to associate religion or spirituality.

You know, I’ve had to turn down gigs, and deals like that, when I sit and I look at it, if I had taken this deal, I will be far gone because you will see the artists that are also on that label they are far gone, but in the long run, it just be you at the end of the day.

Who is your guy remix with Tiwa Savage won Best Collaboration at the Headies and AFRIMMA. Do you still remember how the collaboration happened, and what did you learn from working with Tiwa?

The original song was so big at the time, and Tunde Ednut reached out to me, shout out to him, he told me this song is big right now, we need to take it to the next level, who would you want to have on it? And then he gave me a list of about five artists at the time, I just told him to give me time to pray about it, I came back to him and told him I wanted Tiwa Savage.

I remember that Olamide was on the list, Asake was there and other big names, I chose Tiwa Savage, he reached out to Tiwa Savage, she heard the song, she loved it, and she didn’t even stress us at all, very fantastic personality, very sweet, she recorded it and sent it back, we fixed the date for the video shoot, boom, and that was it.

What did you learn from working with Tiwa Savage? she’s a music icon, people look up to her?

Tiwa is very, very sweet.

Has Spyro ever felt the need to join a certain group or a label, as a result of pressure?

No, not as a result of pressure.

I’m not, I’ve not collaborated with any yet, but there’s a possibility that that might happen. If I find a label that agrees with my values . I don’t see anything wrong with collaborations.

You’ve been so open about your faith and what you stand for, how have you been able to find a balance between being a “cool “superstar in the midst of all this?

I don’t have to find a balance, because I am a child of God unapologetically. There’s no me trying to find a balance.

It’s a way of life for me, I’m supposed to shine the light of Christ in everything I do. I’m in the music industry, I should shine the light of Christ, if people can publicly display drugs, if people can publicly display a lot of atrocities that they do online, I shouldn’t be shy to display God also, at the end of the day, God is my source. And that’s what I am proud of.

If it’s not God, I don’t think I would still be on the scene by now. I’m kind of like the first person in my industry to stand for what I stand for and still be relevant, it’s a lot of pressure, a lot of people don’t want you to be there.

I have the backing of God. I see no reason whatsoever to be finding balance between who I am and what I do.

‘Who Is Your Guy?’ went global. What was the scariest part about suddenly having everyone’s eyes on you?

The scary part is the fact that everybody bills you.

I posted something, I said first Sundays are not complete without blessings.

How do you want me to bless you into February? Someone said, bless yourself. We’ve been trying to reach out to you for years.

And I’m like, what even gives this person the impression that I’ve ever seen your message before? People want to bill you and they want to have a right over your money. People perceive artists to be Dangote.

You make the money but your responsibility also comes at the level. It is when you get into the level of the Dangotes that you don’t have to care about responsibilities.

It throws a lot of artists into depression sometimes because you are even expected to be giving more than you are spending on yourself. People will just come to you, ‘I want to pay a school fees of 22,000 pounds’. The way people just call money 22,000 pounds.

You have the money, but there are times when you don’t, you don’t have at all. And guess what? When you don’t have, you don’t, you can’t go to people and say you don’t have.

So you drink your garri in your house by yourself until when it comes again. Because when you go to people, you say, first of all, they will not even believe that you don’t have. Because why? Oh, look at the cars that you’re driving.

The way you appear is how you’re priced in my industry. So if you appear with a Corolla, they will give you a Corolla money.

That’s why a lot of people tend to go into debt just to make sure that the appearance is it. You have a lot of overhead costs as an artist.

Once my budget for philanthropy/giveaways don finish, e don finish except God now ministered to me that way, I give this person. In 2023 I realized that more than 50% of my income went into giveaways. (Nigerian Tribune)