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Africa Live: Liberia uncovers 40,000 illegal civil servants - BBC News | Africa Live: Liberia uncovers 40,000 illegal civil servants - BBC News |
(32 minutes later) | |
DJ Edu | |
Presenter of This Is Africa on BBC World Service | |
Rotimi is a busy man. | |
The Nigerian-American has a | |
successful career as an actor and is best known for roles in US TV dramas Boss | |
and Power. | |
But he’s also a musician with a string of hits under his belt, and | |
it’s music that is his first love – not including his lady, that is…. | |
His | |
latest release is a catchy Afrobeats number called Sade featuring fellow | |
Nigerian Mayorkun and South African rapper Nasty C. | |
"Me, | |
I’m proper African American and so I wanted to bring the Afrobeats vibes, the | |
R’n’B vibes, the Amapiano vibe all in one record, it was just me, who I am. | |
These guys just helped complement it beautifully," he said. | |
Rotimi | |
says it was when he finally became at ease with his mixed identity that he | |
became able to make great music. | |
"I’m | |
half Igbo, half Yoruba, and also being light skinned it was tough growing up, | |
even coming back [to Nigeria] because they called me white man. | |
"It was always | |
about proving [myself], until I said I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am | |
who I am. Once I lived in that space, that’s where the records came, that’s | |
where the In My Bed came, that’s where Love Riddim came, and all these big | |
records." | |
The | |
acting came about as a way of funding the music. Rotimi’s manager noticed he | |
was natural on camera during video shoots and suggested he put himself forward. | |
"I | |
got thrown into acting, a broke, hungry kid who just happened to be gifted in | |
something he didn’t know he was gifted in. Power and all these things | |
wasn’t my goal, it was always music, it’s always been music," he said. | |
Luckily, | |
being the only child of ambitious parents has given Rotimi the drive and | |
experience to do multiple things at once. | |
He’s had to work superfast in studio | |
because of the time demands that come with being in a long-running TV show: | |
"I | |
would go to set and they’d be like 'your call time is 6am', and I’d be finished | |
at 11pm at night, and the label’s like 'listen bro' you have two hours to give | |
us something'. In those two hours I would make a hit like In My Bed, records | |
that happen to be platinum records now." | |
Rotimi | |
now has to fit his partner, Tanzanian singer songwriter Vanessa Mdee, and their | |
two small children into his schedule. The couple met when they were performing | |
at Essence festival and it was love at first sight. | |
"It | |
was like a movie, the lights get dim, and she’s sitting on a pool table, she kind of looks at me and it’s like oh, what is going on!" | |
Rotimi | |
knew he was smitten when he found himself juggling the eight-hour time | |
difference with East Africa and hanging on the phone late into the night. | |
"'No, | |
you put the phone down! No, you put the phone down, you hang up', | |
I’m doing all that stuff… What the hell? I’m a player baby, I don’t do all | |
this, I’m a sex symbol!" | |
Rotimi | |
and Vanessa Mdee very deliberately share their lives on social media because | |
they are conscious of the need for role models. | |
"We | |
both know there’s not a lot of examples of black strong love and being able to | |
be in the industry like this and have a family and represent these things. We | |
feel like it’s a responsibility for us to show that it can be done - and still | |
be fly and still be cool, and still be sex symbols, baby!" | |
Rotimi’s | |
sense of responsibility extends to his music career, | |
"I’m | |
able to tour the Caribbean and I have a concert in Amsterdam, and doing an | |
Australia tour and have one of the biggest records in Nigeria, so like to | |
represent Africa around the world is the goal." | |
He adds: "The | |
challenge now that you have a little leverage is to know how to say no, and to | |
not sacrifice your morals, knowing how to discipline self, knowing how to block | |
out negativity from people. Getting up every day and trying to better and | |
better and better." | |
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