The exclusive D’banj Interview that shook the world 2 years ago..

On April 23, 2012, timikulzle published an exclusive interview with one of Africa’s greatest music artistes, D’banj. The eye-opening exclusive is till today regarded as the biggest, most talked about, game changing dialogues in the history of Nigerian Entertainment.

Conducted in the United Kingdom by Publisher/Editor-In-Chief. It apparently led to many fans re-thinking their position in the D’banj-Don Jazzy brouhaha.

This was April 2012 if you remember; Don Jazzy in March had announced the shocking end of Mo’Hits Records, ending a fantastic nine-year run of arguably the most powerful record label in Nigeria at the time. It had turned into a fight; it had gotten really messy, e-mails leaked, business partners accused themselves of financial theft, label members attacked each other on social media, people were misquoted out of context in interviews, a deal with G.O.O.D Music was threatened…

D’banj up till the time he spoke with NET had remained silent. On the other hand, Don Jazzy was being such a sweetheart on micro-blogging site Twitter; he had won the hearts of almost everybody and thus their undying support. D’banj looked like the ‘bad guy’, the one who burnt down the Mo’Hit’s empire…this seemed the general consensus, all before 2:30PM, Monday, April 23, 2014.

D’banj’s interview was a tell all: For the first time ever, he narrated how he and his then manager Bankulli met with Kanye West in Dubai, how he and Don Jazzy travelled to New York to meet with Yeezy only for them to spend weeks before meeting him, Jay Z and LA Reid. How he felt betrayed by his Mo’Hits partner whom he says didn’t what their label to expand. How he wanted to bring Def Jam and Universal Records to Africa and more. D’banj in the interview was candid, open-minded and most impressively visionary.

The interview turned the tables and for the first time had fans seeing things from another perspective. It was titled ‘WORLD EXCLUSIVE: ‘How Don Jazzy betrayed me’ – D’banj’.

We at TIM were also shocked; not at the interview per se but the reaction it got from all over the world. Statistics obtained from our digital department shows that the article published online garnered over 42,000 views in the first 24 hours it was published, it then grew into hundreds of thousands in the following weeks. The number of comments made on the article total into 426.

It was also perfect timing for TIM in such a way that the exclusive interview fell into the period of the paper’s second anniversary. TIM Newspaper officially turned two on April 26, 2012 and what better way to celebrate than to publish such an exclusive?

It’s two years later and a lot of things have changed – new labels have been floated, albums have been released, awards have been won, other artistes have (controversially) parted ways with the name Mo’Hits keeps fading away from our minds like the military era. D’banj and Don Jazzy have however made up and have told those who care to hear, that they are friends and will continue to remain so.

Will they ever unite? Former Mo’Hits member Dr SID says, ‘anything thing is possible’…