Hip-hop artist Naeto C is dropping a new album soon titled ‘Festival.’ As part of the marketing and promotions for the album, he granted a recent interview to The Punch Newspaper. In the interview the artist, who has been trying to stage a comeback with his music career, breaks his silence to reveal there were problems with Storm Records, his prior label, which led to him leaving the label.
Long time followers of this blog know that Naeto C’s revelation is really no surprise. Anyone remember this article I authored on AML in 2012? Breaking News: Legal ‘Storm’ Brewing as Obi Asika’s Storm 360 “Fires” Company Director Olisa Adibua #NigerianCompanyLaw.
If you have that kind of drama going on in your business operations, you better believe any smart artist, especially one that is not contractually stuck to your label, will jump ship.
I wish Naeto C success as he tries to reclaim his position in the game. It is crazy how the likes of Naeto C are now technically “veterans” of the industry as younger and younger artists break into the industry. Even the likes of Olamide, Wizkid and Davido now fall in the veteran category as well. Time flies.
-Ms. Uduak
“How come it took you about three years to release an album?
To be honest, it took me a while to release this album because a lot of things were happening with the label, Storm Records that I was working with. The label had problem and it affected what we had already built. You see the success of other prominent record labels in the country and you can see what some artistes have done for the record label. It shows. I did not have that. Even when I got married, I was still releasing songs but what happened with Storm Records affected me a bit and things were not the same again. It was no longer fun to do music there because those were the people I started with. Having to lose the people I started with did not put me in a very good mood to do music. I later got over it and I have been working on this album. It is more of a personal thing.
Is it true that you did not part ways with Storm Records in a peaceful way?
No, it is not true. I was never actually signed to Storm Records. There was never any paper work and when problems began, I decided that I had to take matters into my own hands as opposed to leaving it in the hands of people in Storm Records because I knew that they already had issues there. It was just a function of telling, Obi Asika, that I had some songs that I wanted to release independently and he understood. At a point, I actually brought a management company into the picture but they were scared. We never had any issues in terms of me stepping aside.
Did you make any effort to make things right within the record label?
Yes, I tried my best because the owners of the record label, Obi Asika and Olisa Adibua, are my big brothers. I have known them for a very long time and Obi Asika is my cousin. I have made numerous efforts to see if it is something that could be salvaged but when you are dealing with adults, you have to be careful. I did try numerous times to make things work.”
The Punch Newspaper has the full story.