One of the nation’s hottest Afro hip hop artistes Orezi, is not allowing the success of his hit single
Rihanna and its video get into his head, not even with the advanced talk with a telecommunications giant on an endorsement deal that artiste’s busy scheduled had delayed. “My busy scheduled had delayed the talks but my management team had resumed talks with the company”.
He has finished the video of yet another chart busting song, Shoki and will soon be dropping in a couple of days. Rihanna’s video last year created the kind of buzz in the industry that a young artiste had not achieved in a long while. When all efforts late last year to get the American super diva Rihanna to feature in the multi million naira video did not work out, Orezi and his management team as well as his label, Sprisal Records, went online and decided to shop for a Rihanna look alike.
The search finally paid off when a ‘Rihanna’ sent in her entry from Mauritius. This young, beautiful ‘Rihanna’ named Kim was chosen from over 200 pictures entry. Orezi’s management till date did not reveal the cost of bringing this stunning beauty down to the shoot location in South Africa. However, an inside source disclosed that Orezi’s label paid an initial deposit of 10, 000 dollars to ‘Rihanna’s (Kim) master card account while her traveling arrangement to Johannesburg, South Africa revealed a Business class from Mauritius, – Israel – Hong Kong – South Africa. She was also holed up in one of the biggest hotels in Johannesburg (incidentally the same hotel where Orezi and his team stayed in the pent house). The effort is beginning to yield some fruits with a global recognition of the Rihanna video by the world’s number one online TV channel YouTube. YouTube Nation announced Orezi’s Rihanna video as the no 7 out of 8 Most Incredible Videos Around The World.
The presenters singled Orezi out for commendation for what they described as the great video concept especially for him going extra length to get a Rihanna look alike to feature in the video. The concept, quality and directing was great, they said.
One would think Orezi would pause and bask in the euphoria of his success like a typical Nigerian artiste, but no, he has been working and even travelled to South Africa to shoot his U Garrit. He was accompanied on the trip by the producer of the song, Del B, who incidentally produced Kcee’s hit Limpopo among many others. “God has been good to me, as you can see things have really changed for me in both my music career and life. As you all know, I have a single out there that has reshaped the music industry, it puts smile into everyone’s face anytime you listen and it’s titled Shoki.Shoki is actually a dance that has been in existence but not popular until I saw a boy in my hood, dancing and I asked him what kind of dance is this, he said it’s called shoki and at that moment the inspiration came and played it along a beat that has been on my phone since and behold it went well I called the owner of the beat “Popito” and the rest is history. Under five days, the song was done, mixed and mastered and released. I saw the response was ‘(teach us how to dance it’. I called my long time friend, a rapper and director, Tosin Igho and we did an instructional dance video. We dropped it online but to our surprise it went viral and even some TV station picked and used it. That same week my manager almost couldn’t believe the amount of calls he received. We planned shooting the video a month after but I have been busy these days going to satisfy my fans all over the country. They paid me well so I have to rehearse my performance well to give them value for their money.” On how the video shoot of Shoki went, the singer said: “Well, as you guys know, all my videos have been on top 10 charts. We used like six different locations, different characters and you know how much that would have cost (he smiled and said he won’t mention an amount like the Rihanna shoot last year in South Africa). This one is going to put a smile on the face of all who see it, it is well planned, strategically approached and the delivery is out of this world.
The whole world should expect the best dance video of 2014. I said something similar the last time I was about to drop Rihanna, some people said things until they saw it and believed. This one is going to make who still have doubts to believe the gospel according to ‘Alhaji’ Orezi.”
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