*** Victimized Wizkid, Wande Coal & IcePrince
It was with utmost surprise on Thursday, April 5, 2012 when promising R&B Singer, Praise Adejo otherwise known as Praiz was unveiled as the new face of Nigeria telecommunication company, Etisalat Nigeria in an event at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island Lagos.
Though, rumours are rife before now that Etisalat Nigeria has been rooting for either Wizkid, Wande Coal or IcePrince to be the new Ambassador of the telecom company. They were the telecom company’s first choice owing to their popularity among the youth.
But the story changed few weeks back when yemojanews.com gathered that the Board of Directors at Etisalat has lost interest in these more popular artistes and now planning to sign a deal with X3M Music signed artiste, Praiz.
Steve Babaeko & Praiz
We were told that Steve Babaeko, the CEO of X3M Music who also doubles as the Business/Creative Director at 141 Worldwide, a creative company that has Etisalat Nigeria as its client was in the fore-front of the deal, and made sure he knocked out Wizkid, Wande, and IcePrince to favour his own artiste, Praiz.
A source in Etisalat Nigeria revealed that Babaeko used all propaganda at his disposal, especially some negative media reports and scandals to rubbish the more established artistes during several meeting towards getting a new face for the brand.
Wizkid & IcePrince
“He once told the management of Etisalat that Wizkid has bad reputation and has also been plagued with different scandals ranging from, sex to drug usage, while the shadow of Wande Coal’s Nood picture in 2010 is still very much around. Ice-Prince was not left out with a case of child abandonment and not being responsible”, our source disclosed.
Investigations further revealed that several months ago, X3M music signed Praiz to the label and things were hurriedly put in place in order to establish the R&B singer into the Nigeria music industry.
An impeccable source within the label revealed to yemojanews.com how Babaeko was in a rush to release Praiz debut single just to have a say over artistes being originally penned down to be the brand Ambassador of Etisalat Nigeria.
“It was very interesting back then, Oga (Steve Babaeko) called everyone on the label to start working towards the successful outing of Praiz into the industry. He told us then that the singer will be a very good source of income from Etisalat, (one of our client) with his look and where he’s coming from (MTN Project Fame Academy West Africa). He then shifted attention from other artistes and focused only on Praiz”, our source quipped.
We later gathered that this however led to soft-rock singer, Etcetera’s who was the label’s favourite before Praiz came on board to call it quit with X3M Music on February 21, 2011, when he noticed that attention has been massively shifted from him.
Interestingly, a week after severing ties with Etcetera, Praiz came on board on the first week of March 2011 to be the first R&B singer on X3M Music.
One of the excuses against Etcetera then was that his type of music is very difficult for the company to sell, hence, the refusal to renew the artiste’s recording contract.
Other artistes on the label like rapper, OD (Overdose) remained calm as his contract with the label is still on-course while he can’t jeopardize his career by leaving the label due to the acceptance he got despite his kind of music (hardcore rap), while his fans base is increasing tremendously.
Though, Praiz’s career has grown immensely in the past few months due to the release of his debut singles, “I Love You” and “Jekalo” in August 2011. He has also collaborated with Bez and rapper MI songs, and performed in major concerts like MBGN 2011 edition.
It would also be recalled that Praiz was one of the last four finalist of the 2008 MTN Project Fame West Africa. He eventually became the second runner up while Iyanya was the winner of the show.
Before now, R&B heavyweight, Banky W was the only singer officially associated with the Etisalat Nigeria brand, having been the face of the company’s inaugural 0809JA campaign in 2008.
All efforts to get response from Steve Babaeko proved abortive as he refused to pick our call or return our text messages.
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