With few days to the official release of his debut album titled ‘My Story’, multiple award winning Disc Jockey, DJ SPINALL in this exclusive interview with olorisupergal.com tells us about his background, music, love life, the album, the CAP concept and a whole lot more.
Read Excerpts;
- Who is DJ SPINALL?
” My name is Sodamola Oluseye Desmond popularly known as DJ SPINALL, a pure-hearted christian, easy going guy, left-handed, the third from a family of five, I was born in Lagos on June 2nd a couple of decades ago, My dad is a textile manufacturer, my mum a trader, I read engineering in school but I have always had passion for DJ-ing right from high school, although I know I don’t have talent for singing but I knew I could contribute in so many ways into developing music, I know what a good music should sound like, I am a music co-producer, a song writer,a brand ambassador, a businessman and above all a deep lover of music, that’s just who I am”.
- DJ Career
” Well it all started from my secondary school days where I was fortunate to be the social prefect, so during that time I had to hire a DJ for one of our parties in school, he came and wowed everyone and i was like , how could somebody make people happy through music by just DJ-ing, so that moment I told myself I was going to learn DJ-ing when I finish secondary school and that’s how it all started, so I started DJ-ing in 2003 after graduating from secondary school but professionally, I have been DJ-ing since 2005, it was not easy but I kept going, although I am not there yet but I thank God for where I am today, gradually I know I will get there”.
- The name SPINALL
” The name SPINALL started way back my secondary school days, my nickname was ESPANOLA, I don’t know what it means but the guy that gave me that name says it means ‘the world is not enough’, he said he noticed that I am very energetic and always wanted to do so many things, so he decided to give me that name, he was a very close friend and my art director back then in secondary school, then again when I started DJ-ing, people started calling me SPIN-ALL, but that had no meaning, so I was like why would people just give me names, its high time I sat down and think about a name that would make sense for my brand, so I had to come back to music, the kind of music I love to play, then I realized I love to play all kinds of music, which implies that I am a DJ that likes to SPIN ALL, whether hip-hop, dancehall, afro-beat, anything so I decided to adopt the name DJ SPINALL“.
- The Concept behind THE CAP
” Hmmmn, the inspiration behind the cap is from 3 factors, the first one is from my Dad’s passion for wearing the cap whenever he dresses up for a party, as a typical yoruba man, he would stand before the mirror and stylishly place the cap on his head, you know as a little kid whenever I see him doing that I know he is definitely going to a party and I loved watching him do all that and this is what I depicted in one of my music videos, the second aspect is my love and passion for African fabrics and culture, you know, when a Yoruba man dresses up on his buba and shokoto, he must compliment it with the cap else he is not fully culturally dresses and then the third aspect is that whenever I Deejay, a lot of people would come to me and say , ‘yo that was a crazy azz party’ so I put that those 3 words together –Crazy-Azz-Party– and I discovered that the acronym is CAP, so when I was thinking of what to use in branding myself whenever I deejay, I discovered that these 3 factors really have something in common, THE CAP, so I decided to adopt it and as you can see I now have a whole lot of them in my Car, in my house, everywhere I go. that’s just it”.
- Your relationship with Mavin Records
” I was working with Wande Coal after his Manager then, Mr Nana Abbey contacted me to be his official Deejay and We agreed on contract terms and all that, Wande Coal was still with Mavin Records then, so I was working directly for him and after a while, Mavin records contacted me to be its official deejay so I became Mavin Records‘ official deejay and everything was fine until Wande left the label and I felt obliged to leave too since the person that brought me in had left, Mavin and I didn’t have any issue, We are still very close, I got a lot of inspirations from Mavin Records‘ on my album, Don Jazzy is someone I respect a lot, I was supposed to have a song with Korede Bello and Reekado Banks on the album but time couldn’t allow us do that. So it was when Wande left that I had to leave too, I was just being a loyal guy, that’s just it”.
- Relationship with other DJs
‘ My relationship with other DJs has been very cordial, I am close to DJ Jimmy Jatt, he is my mentor, he is very humble, simple and I so much respect his talent, I also respect DJ Obi, he is one of the most talented DJs in Africa, I am also very close to DJ Caise, we are under the same management company, so I am basically cool with everybody”.
- Love Life
” Well my love life as not really been cool, I have been heartbroken so many times, but I am presently in talks with someone. Let’s just leave it at that, I wouldn’t want to talk more than this on my love life”.
- Scandals-free Celebrity Status
” My scandal-free status is not about my perfection, I just have to thank my parents for my upbringing, we are all well brought up in my family, my parents are disciplinarians and all that really reflect on our lifestyle, I don’t smoke, I drink responsibly, I maintain a decent lifestyle, I don’t have tattoos, I don’t involve myself in controversial things you know and I thank God for that. I am not saying those who have scandals or tattoos are bad people, scandal is part of life, it can happen to anybody, I could be in one tomorrow, its possible, I am human, but I try as much as possible to stay away from it, that’s just me”.
- The Album MY STORY
” My album MY STORY, will be released on October 29th, 2015, but firstly let me play some tracks for you, you know olorisupergal.com is very special to me and it will be the first blogger to hear it, nobody in Nigeria media has ever heard this album, so I am playing this for olorisupergal.com (plays track 8, The Way featuring Mafikizolo and Ice Prince from his i-phone), the reason why I featured Mafikizolo and Ice Prince is because I was trying to think of an outside connect collaboration, you know that voice and that artist that is so much respected across the continent, so I chose Mafikizolo and they really put in work and then in terms of a rapper that is so much respected all over Africa, you know I have been to most parts of the continent and I have sampled people’s opinions and the name Ice Prince has always been mentioned and aside people’s opinions, Ice Prince is very talented, he is someone that can come up with up to 7 tracks in a day so I so much respect his talent, and again for Mafikizolo, I discovered that apart from P-Square who has recorded more successes on the continent, Mafikizolo also stands tall and the fact that they are a male and female really makes me look at it like I am having a male and female and then a talented rapper rapper which will be awesome. I co-produced the track, I decided how the beat should go and also did some scratches on it which is really cool (continues playing Track 8), what really inspired making this album was what inspired how I wanted to make music, you know I have been in the game for close to 10 years now, I have toured different parts of the world and I have hears sounds in different ways, so I wanted a sound that if you play it in Ghana they will love it, in South Africa they will welcome it, so that’s what the album is all about, its strictly African sound, for Africa, by Africans, the idea of MY STORY is from the experiences I gathered from where I have been and things I have heard, all the songs on the album from the lyrics to the beat happens to be some of the things I have experienced, like Track 2 Oluwa is about me showing gratitude to God for my success so far, Track 3 Money where I feature 2face and Wande Coal talks about the importance of money, like at this stage of my life money is very important, I need money to make music, pay bills, shoot videos, everything basically, another track is ‘Tan Mo’ that is ‘who knows it’, you know people think they know it all, they criticize you like they know everything about you but they don’t even know much, there is ‘Fimile‘ which is about street credibility, so my album, MY STORY is all about me. I have other tracks like ‘Attendance‘ where I featured Olamide, ‘Excuse Me’, ‘Baby’, ‘My Heart’, ‘Shout Out‘ featuring Wande Coal, I wrote and co-wrote a couple of other tracks and I was basically involved in the production from track 1 to the end. And if you noticed in the album, I didnt try to put stars alone, it is not about A-list stars alone, its about establishing a clear yunderstanding of certain artist’s talent, for instance, I have Rayce on it, in my opinion I feel like Rayce is one of the most talented artists on the continent but somehow the spotlight is not really focusing on him as much as it should. I can’t really tell it all about the album except you hear it then you will understand everything I am saying. I know it is dope not because it is mine but because I have put it out to about 26 critics and no single one of them has condemned it. So once again, the album will be released on October 29th and it will be available on I-tunes, Spinlet and a couple of other online retail stores, its been well structured for easy access to people, just search for DJ SPINALL on I-tunes or any pf the online retail stores, you will find it. And then there will be an album listening party on November 14th, it will be massive and an announcement will go out very soon on the details.
- Outside Entertaining people, What do you do?
” Outside entertainment, if I am not DJ-ing, producing or writing songs, I do a whole lot of other things, I am into Public Speaking, I have been called upon by so many schools to give motivational talks to students, I have also supported so many awareness campaigns on Cancer and all that”.
- One last word for your fans
” To all my fans out there all I want to say is ‘Thank You’ for believing in me from day one, I have done a lot of projects across different parts of the world and the supports I get from people have been massive, so I can’t thank them enough; and my advice to all my fans is don’t let anyone one push you before you do the right thing, because if you wait to be pushed before you do the right thing you may end up not doing it”.
Watch out for the release of DJ Spinall’s debut album, MY STORY, on October 29th.
olorisupergal.com will keep you posted.
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