MY FOUNDATION STORY

 

Right from primary school through secondary school to the polytechnic and the university, I never planned to own a business.

My plan was to qualify as a chartered accountant, graduate from the university and work as a chartered accountant for organizations with a focus on auditing, taxation and management accounting.

The farthest that I thought that I could go was to be a consultant.

You will notice that I planned to qualify as a chartered accountant before graduating from the university. That is because I started writing the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) examination from my Ordinary National Diploma One (OND1) whilst I was an accounting student of the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.

After OND, I did my industrial attachment with Equitorial Trust Bank Limited where I worked as a communication assistant, switchboard operator and receptionist.

After my IT, I began to lose interest in a 9 to 5 job. I did not really see myself going to work every day like my parents did; my father is a quantity surveyor while my mother was a nurse. I knew that I would be bored but I was already on the accounting path and did not see a derailment in view. 

There was no use of ruffling feathers since the altercation between me and my parents and my choice of class: science or commercial or art as I was about to get into senior secondary school. 

I knew that I wanted to be in the art class but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do but by the time I was done with secondary school, I knew that I wanted to study theatre arts. Your guess is as good as mine. It was going to be an impossible task to achieve.

I gave my thoughts about a change of course a chance while I was studying accounting at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun state. 

At the time that I was a student at this school, theatre arts was not taught. The nearest course to it was mass communication. 

My friends thought that I was making a mistake as I could run into complications with a change of course. So, I stuck with my accounting and graduated with a second class upper.

After school, I tried to get a job at about six advertising companies as a copywriter but they all kept referring me to their accounting department. I fled! 

I could not get any other job except at the banks based on my initial work experience. So, I got stuck with working from one bank and financial institution to the other.

During my national youth service, I served in Lagos state and I was a member of the cultural troupe. I won an award for my outstanding performance as a talking drummer. 

Afterwards, I got a scholarship to study music at the Pencils Film and Television Institute. I majored in the drums set and I graduated with a distinction and as the best music performing student. 

This is where my dream of becoming a  professional musician was birthed.

I worked a 9 to 5 and went for gigs on weekends.

I wrote my first song in 1992 when I was in SSS one. It was titled, Get the Job. It was a rap song.

I began to write songs professionally after I graduated from music school in 2008. My first professional song is titled, Masterpiece. It is going to be one of the eighteen songs that will make up my debut album this 2021.

In 2009, I recorded an EP that consisted of two songs titled, Excuse Me Dance and Now O'Clock. The latter song will be one of the songs on my debut album. 

I shopped for a record label, sharing my demo up and down the streets of Lagos but I could not get any record label that wanted to sign up a musician who played a local musical instrument, was a jazz musician, was married and already in her thirties with two children.

I did not fit into the hip-hop trend and I was not ready to change my genre of music for anyone or get sexually involved with anyone for the sake of my music career.

My self-worth must be intact at all times.

So, I decided to register my own entertainment business as an enterprise on the twelfth day of January 2010 to cater for my music content and services and that is how Drumline Entertainment was born.

Now, I can sing whatever genre of music that I like and provide whatever entertainment service that I want.

However, I have restricted myself to the following services and they are:

1. Authorship
2. Music Blogging
3. Music Promotion
4. Music Publishing
5. Music Performance as a jazz musician and a disc jockey.

I enjoy all that I do and intend to do so for many more years to come.

I am musically yours, 

DJ Irawo