Nigerian singer nightclub Influencer and actor, Adeyemi Idowu, widely known as Yhemolee sits with ChudeJideonwo on #WithChude to discuss how he first ‘blew up’ on social media, the growth and explosion of himself and his friends including Chinko Ekun and Asake and how he brought his mum and dad together after years of separation and hurt.
“A lot of people think I just came out of nowhere, but I have always been here. I have been actively working behind the scenes. But when I started popping, I didn’tjoke with it. I started as the online guy. People love to go to the internet; I was just one of those guys that try to make people happy. Even if it was 5,000 people, I make myself responsible to make them happy in that space, till it got bigger. After a while, I just started working on other stuff. I think I have just been a growing human; I have never been static; I have just been exploiting every opportunity I get.”
Speaking about how he found his way into skit making, he shared, “I think my downtime and depression made me get into the online space. To be honest, I didn’t like online popularity before. While I was in school, I was like top 2, in the whole 35,000 students in my set, I really liked entertainment, I started hosting amphi-shows while I was in 200 level facing 7,000 students. I liked doing stuff, but I don’t know how to post and have people comment, I just wanted to work on the street and be the popular guy.
I had that kind of life for 6 years in school. I, Blaqbonez, Chinko Ekun, and Asake were just a set of guys moving towards having a good life, but we weren’t mainstream. After graduation was when life really hit. We didn’t know life was different outside school.” He went on to share how he started making videos online and how that created a path for him to establish an online presence.
He shared further on his relationship with Asake, and his growth story, “My greatest achievement for 2022 is Asake. We have been together for 13 years. I was at his concert in London and I cried fire.” Yhemolee shared his humble beginning with his friends, and how he had introduced Asake to Olamide.
He narrated the unfolding of events, and how Asake got signed into YBNL record label. ‘After the signing, we still felt like, signing is nothing. You can sign an artiste and you don’t know what to do. We didn’t know what was going to come.
But Asake is a mini-god, he knows that apart from this music, there was nothing else. He had been working on this moment for years. He doesn’t like to drop songs because there was no platform to push it.
So, he would rather record the songs and keep them. So, when Baddoo asked him to send some of his songs, Baddoo was like, Asakehad enough songs to kick off three albums. He dropped the EP three weeks, after the signing. He also shared how Asake landed Burna Boy on the remix of his song Sungba.
And how it all came back to him and made him cry, seeing Asake in his concert in London. “I could see that his life has changed. If you see Asake you go thinksay you dey see Drake. You know he has a deal with Empire so, he moved from YBNL to Empire, which was an international space. I could see everything, and I felt it”.
“It got to a stage that I couldn’t enter backstage. In Lagos now, I can go to any backstage, but I couldn’t do that in London. So, I got to the show past 9. I didn’t have a ticket, and I didn’t buy it. [I had thought that] it’s my guy’s show, I’d just call them to come and pick me. But that didn’t happen, I was very cold. I was so angry because I had told his manager that I was coming. I have never been to London before and I came when the cold is killing.
Asake come go give information say ‘my brother dey outside, make una go carry am come. When I got there, I was looking at him for about 15mins. I was already seeing him as a pop star. Even I couldn’t talk to him…everything has change, you can’t have access to him, you can’t talk, you have to calm down, na him go come talk to you. It was like –6 and this people came to watch this boy under my nose, you can’t tell me not cry, he added.”
While talking about bringing his parents together after their seperation, he shared, ‘I mean I saw myself and my sister through school, and they separated at a point where they could have damaged our lives.
My parents were well to do, and I went to the best schools. I mean as a ‘butter’ child, everyone knew our parents were responsible for us until they separated suddenly. Well, my mother is enjoying her life. But for my dad, being that guy that messed up and separated from mum for years, [it wasn’tthe same]. I mean I’m the first child, I’m his son. And the man is sorry after all. When he left, he was constantly checking up on us even though he did something wrong to my mum. I decided to do a reunion to get them into the same space. It was so bad that when he tells people he is my father, they do not believe him. While my mother is called, Iya olowo eko. If you go to her shop in Ikorodu, my picture is there, on a banner like this. But my father has to explain to them, ‘dem go say na lie.
That boy wey I dey see so wey dey for Megamound, you dey for ibadanhere’. Personally, it was paining me. And what can I do? Even if I send him money, he’s still there. So, I relocatedhim. On my mum’s birthday. I didn’t tell her I was going to call him. So, they just met in my parlor. and they’regood now, they’re very good”.
Watch the excerpt here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuBdn2ptDEU/
