Forget Your Favorite Musicians, These Are The Real MVPs!

Ayodele Odunsi CEO - Gas Promotions

It is very well tenable to agree to the fact that the outstanding showing and awesome achievements of artistes within the Nigerian music sphere is all down to their talents, hardwork and resourcefulness, but I just feel in as much as these are the major reasons they tend to thrive, the mighty works of the unsung heroes that are behind their extravagantly glamorous survival should never be undermined which in all honesty has been and is still being…

And who are the unsung heroes I am talking about? The music promoters!

Music promotion is just as important and invaluable to the success of an artiste just the way their talents and hard work are. We have seen artistes with extraordinary talents in the Nigerian music industry fade away just because they were unable to affiliate themselves with a powerful, influential and ingenious music promotion company.

As an artiste, you can have a beautiful voice, extraordinary writing skills and an all-round music mastery that could be unrivalled, but without these gifts being projected to the world, you are not different from an ordinary person who does not possess the enviable flair that nature has given you. However, if you are able to get a good music promoter in your corner, your chances of being a star rises outrageously. Funnily enough, even for a person that is not head-over-heels good musically, he/she still tends to make outstanding success in the music craft & business just as a result of the works of an excellent music promoter.

On the last Saturday in January of 2019, I was just really in the mood of exercising my fingers on the keys of my personal computer, although ideas on what to write about were not forthcoming, I tried so hardly to spring up a tangible thought, it wasn’t coming still and I was already giving up. But just when I was about giving in to not having a headway, something struck my mind about surfing the internet to search for the music promoters that we have around. I thought since I already have been conceiving the thought of their contributions to helping music artistes and their songs gain mainstream recognition, it would be a fantastic idea to look it up.

Immediately this idea came, I logged on to google to search for some of the promoters in the Nigerian music business and familiar brands were popping up; the likes of Cecil Hammond’s Fly Time Entertainment, Femi Akande’s Kilimanjaro Events, Chin Okeke’s Eclipse Live, Junior Adeosun’s Smade Events, Paul Okoye’s (Oga Paulo) Upfront & Personal Bookings and many more filled the pages of my screen. But these are just show promoters and they are not the ones I am looking for or hoping to write about.

The brands above only promote and do shows for artistes not promote their music. As a matter of fact, these brands mostly associate themselves with established stars or potentials with obvious promises of attaining stardom because they cherish so much the gains these ‘big guys’ will bring them.

Out of my dissatisfaction for what I found and my curiosity to come across a ‘proper’ music promoter, I forged ahead with google and under one of the posts I had on my screen, I saw a brand name, Gas Promotions slightly highlighted, and immediately it struck my mind that someone has once told me about the exploits of this covert but highly piercing music promotion company within the Nigerian music industry and outside of it. Out of my excitement, I ran a thorough check on the company and what I found seem so convincing.

Ayodele Odunsi - C.E.O Gas Promotions

To my amazement, the Ayodele Odunsi led Gas Promotions has been in existence for the past fourteen years, establishing themselves as one of Nigeria’s leading promotion company, doing their music marketing with utmost professionalism and attaining unrivalled achievements with the young and aspiring stars under its marketing and promotion watch, thereby turning them into superstars.

Gas Promotions have worked and still working with a number of Nigerian music stars in the past and present, helping them to push their crafts to the mainstream as well as maximising their duties to building these artistes from scratch to stardom.

Gas Promotions have worked with LAX in the past. When LAX left Wizkid’s Starboy, Ayodele Odunsi; owner of Gas Promotions, with his team of highly devoted and diligent young minds, took over the promotional affairs of the then young LAX who was looking to have a breakthrough unto the peak of Nigerian music. And just as the young artiste would have wanted, they helped to shoot him to stardom, promoting his various songs to hit singles as well as managing all of his other music affairs until he dropped his recent album; “Rasaking.”

Aside LAX, Gas Promotions also worked with Vector, promoting his 2014 single; “Shiga” which became a smash hit. “Shiga” was played on the streets, clubs, events and many other places, leaving so much joy in the hearts and faces of those that were present anytime it sounded from the speakers. The song even rose to become one of the best songs of that year and would easily pass to be considered as Vector’s biggest ever song.

Ayodele Odunsi’s Gas Promotions also promoted Dotman’s “Akube” after its release in 2016 and you all know how quickly the song grew on the streets and into the mainstream. “Akube” made Dotman a popular figure among music fans and Gas played a major role in that regard.

Gas Promotions also promoted DJ Cuppy’s first single, “Green Light” featuring Tekno on the streets and they turned out to make huge success as the song blew up everywhere. “Green Light” became a hit.

They also worked with DMW’s act, Dremo, before and after he got signed by Davido. They made Dremo’s single; “Kpa” ft Davido a hit on the street as a result of their expertise in music marketing and promotion. They have also worked with many other artistes too.

More so, I know many of you would be familiar with the phrase, “Respect Da DJs.” Gas Promotions is the pioneer of the popular DJ phrase. “Respect Da DJs” was an event put together by Gas Promotions focused at creating a productive avenue to celebrate and honour the Nigerian DJ’s for their immense contribution in the entertainment industry as well as an opportunity for young up & coming artistes from across Nigeria to get up close and personal with the 20 most sought-after Disc Jockeys from the radio, streets and clubs. Gas promotions is recognised by all the DJs present in the country.”

Gas Promotions from my research has done a lot for not only artistes but the whole of the music industry. But I believe somebody could be overly curious to asking, “If they are that big, how come they are not as popular as the others?”

Using Asa Asika & Bizzle Osikoya’s ThePlug as an example which is a management company for Davido and the Dmw crew. The artistes working with the company have made the brand very well known amongst music fans. You see Davido both home and abroad rock the company’s merchandise, though he could afford the best of fashion attires anywhere in the world, he still puts on ThePlug’s merchandise in order to help project the brand to the world. Now if you hear anyone mention ThePlug, Davido comes to mind and even asides the OBO, every other artiste under the company’s watch, Mayorkun, Peruzzi etc all represent for ThePlug everywhere they find themselves.

That’s exactly what I expect Gas Promotions to always do with the huge number of clientele they have and I feel that is why the company is not so popular among music fans.

Regardless of the fact that Gas Promotions have done well in terms of the calling of their trade, from my research, I tend to understand that they haven’t done enough as a company to be in the faces of music fans.

I have seen the names of a lot of music brands being inscripted on T-shirts, Caps and other stuff, but I have never come across Gas Promotions on any of these things. They should make it culture too.

According to my research, they have brokered good promotion deals with top artistes internationally making them a force to reckon with. And for these reasons, they should be a mighty music brand in Nigeria. Hence, they should be making some really serious moves in order to work with these artists so they are at everybody’s faces after they are delivering so much for them.

From my research, I could deduce that Ayodele Odunsi (Owner of Gas Promotions) is one of the richest music promoters in Nigeria who is not fascinated by fame. And even words from the streets confirmed it totally, so it does not mean they are lacking in financial resources, so he shouldn’t just be adopting his low-key lifestyle as a modifier for his brand but be wise enough to project is good work well enough where we have a lot of fake promoters projecting what they can’t represent more.

Nevertheless, the purpose of writing this article should not be defeated as accolades need to be given to music promoters that make our favourite music artistes survive in the industry. So I believe It is high time we started to accord some credits to these promotion companies as I believe they are the real MVPs. I will do everything within my capacity to get in touch with Ayodele Odunsi and try to sit him down for an interview so I could get him to air his view on music artistes & promotions and more importantly his own company (Gas Promotions).

I hope I can get to interview more if I am successful with Ayodele Odunsi, until then, get familiar with what I have written above.

Written by Taiwo Oluwafemi

Twitter: @neefemie

Instagram: @neefe_nawti