Nigerian singer, Iyanya Onoyom Mbuka also known as Iyanya, has revealed how he lost millions of naira in an attempt to feature award-winning rapper, Nicki Minaj, on one of his hit songs.
Iyanya took to Twitter to reveal to his fans that the venture cost him and his manager, Ubi Franklin at least $23,000 (N10,683,500.00). However, their journey to Atlanta for the collaboration was fruitless.
The singer wrote: “So Kukere was so massive we did all we could to get it out there and then came the pressure of the next single.
We had “Flavour” already produced and recorded but for some reason, we felt it wasn’t the next single after Kukere. On one beautiful morning, we decided to remake “Kukere” and turn it into a new song that became “Ur waist”.
“Big-ups to @Therealdtunes who changed everything and we recorded “Ur waist” and we were clear that was the next single.”
Iyanya continued: “Ur waist was so massive we decided it should go international and we needed the right artiste to help with that journey. @ubifranklin1suggested Nicki Minaj and I asked how we’re gonna pay for that, he laughed and said, ‘if your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough’”.
He noted that they began making calls and were able to meet someone who claimed to know the Anaconda rap star.
Iyanya further wrote that the contact told them to fly out to Atlanta, US, as soon as possible.
The Kukere singer stated: “We started making contacts to who will get us Nicki Minaj and we found someone Who had direct contacts and he asked that we fly to Atlanta for a meeting with him and then he will take us to meet Nicki Minaj for the collaboration.
@ubifranklin1 and I flew straight to Atlanta and we started meetings that will lead to the reason when we were in Atlanta. Omo na so them start to carry us go club yo light bottles to show say money Dey… omo no be person tell us to wise o.
“Before we met Nicki Minaj our contact person had taken us to meet R Kelly and 2chains, and a few other celebs who were in Atlanta at the time. Oyaaaa the day don reach to meet Nicki Minaj, na so them come tell us say to get her on a verse we needed $200,000, we started making calls to raise the money, we pushed and we were able to raise $70,000 they said Nope. We called all the chairmen on our contact list and nada.”
Speaking on the pain of disappointment they felt as well as the money and time lost, he posted, “Now here is the painful part, our tickets, Hotel for at least 10 days already, food and car hire service was already around $23,000 and then @ubifranklin1 started calculating that we for just stay Nigeria and added that money to our $70k. We beg tire and nothing.
“The last night before we left Atlanta, we were invited to a studio and the message was “get there at 11:45 pm no entry after 11:45 pm. @ubifranklin1 got a car ready for 9 pm and the place was around Buckhead not far from our hotel(10mins) but we wanted to be there 2 hours early. She show studio sha at 1:am, she didn’t come for our recording, she came for a diffident song, but our contact wanted us to know we he had the direct link to get her on a song. We tried to take pictures them tell us say we no fit take pictures.
“Our plan was to take pictures and send back home to give our chairmen, ginger to see we could raise the money, omo zero picture, zero collabo na so we return naija to continue our hustle.”
