INTERVIEW | NIGERIAN ARTIST MOVEMENT OLAMI DISCUSSES NEW SINGLE ‘GBOWO’

‘GBOWO’ IS OUT NOW

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We had the pleas­ure of inter­view­ing Olado­tun Ori­mo­gun­je, known by his stage name Move­ment Olami. He is a Nigeri­an Afrobeat & Afroswing sing­er, rap­per, song­writer, and per­form­ing artist based in Lagos, Niger­ia. Move­ment Olami star­ted his music career pro­fes­sion­ally at the age of 14 and has since been ded­ic­ated to mak­ing music with pas­sion. In this inter­view, he talks about his latest single “Gbowo,” his cre­at­ive pro­cess, his involve­ment with DMG Mafia Fam­ily, and the chal­lenges he’s faced as an up-and-com­ing artist in the Nigeri­an music industry. He also gives us a sneak peek into his upcom­ing EPs and his plans for the future!

Who is Move­ment Olami, and how would you describe your music­al style?
My name is Olado­tun Ori­mo­gun­je, I’m known by my stage name ‘Move­ment Olami’. I’m a Nigeri­an Afrobeat & Afroswing Sing­er, Afro­maz­ing Rap­per, Song­writer and Per­form­ing Artist. I star­ted my music career pro­fes­sion­ally at the age of 14. I found love in doing music with pas­sion. I am based and grew up in Lagos, Niger­ia, the city of excellence.

What inspired you to write your latest single ‘Gbowo’?

With all the work and ded­ic­a­tion, stand­ing ten toes on the grind. ‘GBOWO’ means ‘to col­lect money’.
It was inspired from hust­ling, know­ing fully that every hust­ler gets a pay day.

Can you walk us through your cre­at­ive pro­cess behind ‘Gbowo’?
I do it dif­fer­ently. The words, the lyr­ics, the atti­tude in the music is top notch and is there to motiv­ate the right audi­ence world­wide and globally.

 Tell us a bit about DMG MAFIA FAM­ILY, and your involvement?
DOPE MONI GENG ( DMG MAFIA FAM­ILY ) was foun­ded by “Ani Arin­ze Micheal“ a.k.a “Dope Moni” in the year 2013. I joined the fam­ily as the first offi­cial mem­ber in the year 2014, which was the time I released my first offi­cial single.
We are group of broth­ers, just like fam­ily, DMG con­sists of inde­pend­ent artists.

DMG Fam­ily is a label of unsigned artists with ambi­tions, built on a sol­id found­a­tion, glow­ing, and empower­ing every single artist in the label. I stand as the front man and pres­id­ent in DMG Fam­ily, I am the old­est mem­ber of the record label.

How has your upbring­ing and back­ground influ­enced your music?
Let’s fast for­ward to 2014 where I star­ted music pro­fes­sion­ally. It was a great decision doing it with pas­sion: the ups and downs, in tears and joy, comes rain and then sun­shine. It’s all love and pos­it­ive energy, encour­age­ment with a big sup­port from the hood to the city. It can only get bet­ter and bet­ter every day.

What are some of the chal­lenges you’ve faced as an up-and-com­ing artist in the Nigeri­an music industry?
The chal­lenges are the sweetest part of the journey.

In Nigeria’s music industry today, artists have to seek a lot of atten­tion to catch the right audi­ence, and no one is will­ing to help for free, and even when you paid for it, you still get dumped. So, I dis­covered myself. I do my thing, I run my race — but still God over everything.

Like 2 years ago when I fea­tured the pop­u­lar Bella Shmurda on my single and music video ‘Choko, we paid Bella Shmurda about 800,000 Naira in total. It was after the music was released and I asked for sup­port but could not get it from him that I under­stood what the industry is all about.

There was even a time when my dis­tri­bu­tion com­pany Dis­trokid needed some kind of con­firm­a­tion from Bella Shmurda, and he didn’t give us atten­tion or accept to send the con­firm­a­tion to Dis­trokid. It caused the track to be taken down in all music­al plat­forms except You­Tube, but all those chal­lenges were what kept us mov­ing until today. All thanks to God am get­ting to the top.

Tell us a bit about the upcom­ing EPs you are work­ing on, what can we expect to hear?
Com­ing soon – The ‘BREAK­THROUGH EP’. With the love, hap­pi­ness, joy, emo­tion, pas­sion, sad­ness, and everything inside of me. I ded­ic­ate and say out my mind and soul to every­one in my body of work on this pro­ject, it’s more than the music.
So far so good, we should be grate­ful for life still.

What are your plans for the future with regards to work­ing with labels/distributors in Africa?
First of all, know­ing fully I’m doing well, and the energy was nev­er to be com­pared — that’s the goal.
I want to work with big labels not just in Africa, but world­wide. Labels like EMPIRE, Jonz­ing Records, SONY MUSIC, MAVINS RECORD, emPawa, YBNL, DMW, CHOCOL­ATE CITY, STAR­BOY ENT. When they hear my EP and also my upcom­ing album, they will all set forth to look for the boy.

Where can we find out more about your music?
I’m out every­where on Google and all music plat­forms and social media plat­forms. Just key in your search ‘Move­ment Olami’.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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