Project Fame was a music talent TV reality show filmed in Lagos and aired across West Africa. It used to feature contestants from Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, but Liberia and Sierra Leone were dropped after the Ebola outbreak. Project Fame was a fan favorite across Western Africa and was an important tool for the standard of our music industry at the time. In fact, it just might have been our first and probably our most important music academy yet.
As a kid, I had an aunt who was a top official with MTN. She always went to watch the shows, and one day she invited my family. I was a kid, so my parents didn’t want me to go. They went, alone, by themselves and in love, leaving me to watch the TV the weekend after hoping to see my parents on the screen in the crowd by mistake. Shame.
I remember being interested in seeing Joseph Benjamin, Adaora Oleh, and Bolanle Olukanni come on my screens as a kid. The hosts of the show, they kept Africa in a chokehold for years with their eloquence and mastery of the stage. They were as quality as the performers and the judges. Week in, week out, we conversed, and I built a relationship with people I never met because of the quality of their art.
The judges were on another level. Till today, I still think about Uncle Ben. I miss him. I’m sure the industry does too. He set a standard. The viewers fell in love with how he never accepted mediocrity. He was their nightmare, but he was their truth. His philosophy of pushing you beyond your limit was fantastic because once you surpassed a limit, it became a norm. You either become a better artist or you break, and either option is great.
Aunty Bibie was graceful. She was one of my first introductions to steeze. She had it, a lot of it. Tee-Y Mix? My absolute favorite. Ultima Studios created something special, and our industry thanked them for a while.
The show became notorious for its winners struggling to make an impact on the mainstream industry after they won. Of all the contestants in the 9 seasons, only Iyanya, Chidinma, Praiz, Niniola, Chike and Johnny Drille have gone on to make various degrees of success in music; season 5 winner Ayoola went on to become a thriving TV star.
I personally didn’t see this as an issue. Young as I was I realized that these guys didn’t need to make pop songs. They could grow the R&B and Alternative side of our music. A few of them did, like Johnny Drille, Chike, and Praiz. Iyanya, Chike, and Niniola found success in the mainstream, but not on the level we all thought they would.
Project Fame was our first proper music academy, with Faculty members and a panel of judges working every week to hone talents for the entertainment space. They even went on to service other aspects of entertainment.
Bisola Aiyeola is now one of the biggest faces on Nigerian TV and YouTube. Darey Art Alade packages some of the biggest events and important moments in our entertainment scene. Ayoola went on to become a TV star. Chike is now making hits, after hacking the science of good albums. Niniola is the queen of a branch of Afrobeats. Johnny Drille is topping charts till today. Whether the show touched the level of expectation of fans or not, it definitely did its job.
It also serviced the entire industry. Now labels have academies that breed superstars for themselves and themselves alone, like the Mavin or Chocolate City Academy. While that’s not a bad thing, we could definitely do well with a structure that services morepeople and serves talents that have gone through some form of refining.
Big Brother came ad stole the scenes. They succeeded mainly due to stan culture and competition. Project fame most certainly has the platform for both of these things, and would benefit highly from it. There were reports of a rumored comeback a while ago, with P Priime and Sarz announced as judges. Only God and the people involved know what happened.
I miss Project Fame. I do. There was a time Ultima Studios burnt down and they still found a way to make it work. It would also be a massive success now due to the rise in stan culture. Afrobeats does need Project Fame. As we transition into the phase where we need to learn how to gatekeep our music properly, we need institutions like Project Fame. Dear MTN, the genre will thank you. Can you? Please?
