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Until recently, Ayeni Adekunle was known as an entertainment journalist and publicist for most of Nigeria’s major artistes but the deaths of two artistes he held dear and a nudge from a friend, turned him into a publisher. Abimbola Adelakun reports.
Nigerian media has, for a long time, focused on entertainment as a supplement to other hard news. This is the void Mr. Adekunle Ayeni aims to fill with his entertainment newspaper, Nigeria Entertainment Today.
Before the advent of NET, there had been efforts to have a media form dedicated solely to entertainment stories but they did not quite succeed probably because they were an idea ahead of their time. However, Ayeni, as he is known in the entertainment industry, says that NET has come to stay. The paper, whose online version has been on since November last year, is all about Nigerian entertainment.
The idea of entertainment, according to Ayeni, transcends the usual music and films. Very soon, the paper will become a weekly publication and that raises the issue of whether it will be able to generate enough Nigerian content to sustain itself, considering the fact that the Nigerian entertainment industry is not as vibrant as its foreign counterparts.
Ayeni, who until very recently handled E-Punch, the entertainment column published every Friday in THE PUNCH, is very sure he and his team will never run short of stories. ”Things happen every day. I once wrote a critique against STV for giving too much privilege to foreign entertainment stories over local ones. I was told that there was not enough happening on the local scene. I said their reporters were just being lazy. If they tried, they would find that there was more than enough local content to fill more than an hour airtime.
“NET can run daily and we will not be bereft of materials. The whole Africa has attention on Nigeria now. There is P-Square, Tuface, Asa, Dare and the rest of them making the industry vibrant,” he tells our correspondent.
Though it has always been Ayeni‘s dream to run a conglomerate that turns out entertainment stories through various media forms, it took two deaths for his dream to be jump-started.
One was that of King of Pop, Michael Jackson, whose death news was broken by a relatively unknown website. He was wowed that the greatest news in the world, which he had been compiling materials for, for close to 10 years, was broken by a website nobody paid any prior attention to. A month later, he had a website commissioned and by November, they were already publishing entertainment news.
The second was the death of rapper, Da grin. Being very close to the deceased, he had first hand information about him that no other media house had at that time, such that they were able to run exclusive stories and pictures.
”It was Ayo Animashaun that said, ‘You have all these materials and they are exclusive. Can we do something with it that people can keep in memory of Da grin? You know, something people can read and keep.‘ He challenged me by calling his graphic artist and telling him to get to work. Twenty-four hours later, we had a paper in our hands - a tribute to Da grin. There were 16 pages of Da Grin. For me, those things that happened, I think, just showed superior forces at work. I guess the way the industry in Nigeria works, the time has to be right for the project. Identify the right timing and be able to bring in a couple of elements which some of these other papers do not have.”
Ayeni is a University of Ibadan graduate of Microbiology and he says he knew he would never work in a laboratory or even a bank.
He grew up in Okokomaiko, a part of Lagos with a vibrant ghetto culture similar to Ajegunle, which, by nature of the environment, produces artists and artistes. While Ajegunle produced the likes Daddy Showkey, Okokomaiko produced Sonny Slide and Father U-Turn. As far back as 1995, Ayeni became a promoter, organising shows and running same. The shows were all run at a loss but he acquired worthwhile experience.
Today, his company, Black House Media, handles publicity and communication for Nigerian Idols, MTV Networks Africa, Hiphop World Awards, Darey Art Alade, Disney High School Musical, Nigeria at Nottinghill Carnival and many others.
When he started the company in 2005, the first acts he worked for were Weird MC, 2face Idibia and Kween Onokala. Then, many people asked him why anyone would need a publicist, when the journalists were just a phone call away. Today, due to his foresightedness, almost every actor, actress, musician or model has a publicist.
“For me, the excitement comes from seeing smiles of satisfaction on the faces of those we work for. From 2face winning the MTV EMA in 2005, to when he won the MOBO in 2007 to when Weird MC reaped the fruits of the success of Ijo Ya. I‘m particularly pleased with the transformation we were able to achieve - with the help of his team, Soul Muzik of course- for Darey Art Alade. We‘ve also worked with Lagbaja, 9ice, Tee A, DJ Jimmy JATT, NIGEZIE and many others. I‘m lucky, really, because I'm now able to enjoy the best of both worlds, so to speak –overseeing the work Nike Fagbule and the other guys at BHM are doing with their 360 degrees bespoke media solutions; while at the same time, working with the team at NET newspapers to build Nigeria's first and best entertainment newspaper.”
His science background has one advantage though: it helps him break the rules since he never learnt them in school but has to rely on talent, intuition and creativity.
Ayeni has written for several entertainment journals -Encomium, This day, The PUNCH — and freelanced for many
Originally published in Punch Newspapers on August 1, 2010 by Abimbola Adelakun
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