Why I didn’t sign Falz, Simi and Teni – Don Jazzy reveals as he expresses regret

CEO of Mavin Records, Michael Collins Ajereh aka Don Jazzy has expressed his regret for failing to sign Simi, Teni and Falz, some of Nigeria’s top singers’ at the early stages of their career.

Speaking in a Black Box Interview with Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, the music producer revealed how he lost Falz due to his affiliation with another manager and how he failed to choose Simi in a music contest he organised years back.

Don Jazzy also noted he couldn’t sign Teni because she was based in Atlanta, USA at the time and he had not gotten to the stage of bringing people from overseas down to Nigeria.

Furthermore, he said that the singer he never wanted to manage is Davido because he knew he would become big.

He said; “I can’t say I turned them down. For Falz, the working situation wasn’t just right. I run a firm that could handle almost everything he needed.

“But I think he had like a management company set up already. It was like Tiwa Savage’s but I had to grow into that kind of scenario where I had to handle someone that had a record label, some blueprint process.

“I equally didn’t reject Simi. I did a Twitter contest for ‘Journey of A Thousand Miles’. I also loved her cover because she was one of the people that participated but she didn’t win.

“I didn’t pick the winners. I liked her but you can’t sign anybody. That’s one person I also regretted, I won’t say regret. But I wish we worked on stuff together. The same thing with Teni. We used to check up on each other.

“I had not grown to the point that I would move you from Atlanta to Nigeria for work. Now I can and we work before deciding if we are going to sign. Before I knew what was happening, there were faster people.

“She released records and I was like, ‘okay, we lost that one’. Three hot stars. The only person I didn’t want to sign was Davido I didn’t want to sign him but I knew he was going to be huge. They have money already now”

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