Kent Edunjobi (Kentoxygen) is a singer, songwriter, music producer, and drummer. He started his music career at a young age as a member of a choir, where he is at present the music director. His love for percussion spurred his interest to go beyond singing at an early age; thus began his venture into playing musical instruments and production. Edunjobi has written and produced the soundtracks of several movies by Kunle Afolayan. They include Mokalik, Roti, The Bridge, Omugwo, The Tribunal, Diamond in the Sky, Hakkunde, the Netflix Original movies Citation and Swallow. Edunjobi takes Tosin Clegg on a journey of his career
Who is Kent Edunjobi?
I’m from a family of seven and the last of them all. After my primary and secondary school education I went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to study Computer Science and Statistics. I’m married and we have two lovely boys. I call myself a music maker as there are so many sides to my music. I am a song writer, music producer, performer and vocalist as well.
What kind of music do you and what informed your genre of music?
I like to call my type of music Afrocentric in the sense that it is a fusion of the western sound and of course our traditional folk sounds. What informed my kind of music is basically my background as growing up my father was a lover of Haruna Ishola, King Sunny Ade, Sir Shina Peters, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall but Sir Shina Peters has always been my favorite. These veterans helped to shape my music and deposited a lot into me. So, on discovering myself and my talent, it wasn’t really hard to figure out what I needed to do as I had sound from our local music right in my head and sound from the western sound I have been listening to courtesy of my siblings. That’s when I decided to fuse both genres and it came out great.
At what point did you start your musical career and why?
I started my career professionally in 2010 but before then I have always been singing as I started music from the church. But it was all for fun as I even had a music group then with my friends and we go from one concert to another. It wasn’t a big thing until 2010 when I reconnected with one of my cousins in the UK and she started talking about music. I sent her some of my demos and she started talking about how God isn’t happy as he gave me a gift and I haven’t been using it. At first, I thought it was a joke but it later became very serious and I had to pray about it. Then I made a decision to give it a try and this is where the trial has gotten me to.
How do you get the inspiration to compose sound tracks for movies?
My go to routine would always be that I would read the script first and try to understand it which is most important. I also try to know if it is possible to be on set. If I won’t be able to join them on set, I would try to be in sync with the director of the movie to know what he wants and how he wants me to handle the project. After this, I go to my own creative space and try to put myself into working things out.
Tell us about winning the AMAA 2021 and AMCVA 2023 awards and on what productions did you get the awards?
For AMAA 2021, I won the best sound track for Citation and AMVCA for the best sound track on Anikulapo. It was quite an experience and it’s something I would never forget because it means that the industry is growing and the sound track side of things is now being taken seriously. Of course, not everyone would be the next super star out there but there are other angles to music that we can offer solutions to. Sound track is one area we haven’t taken seriously and those awards for me goes beyond me winning as it’s a win for everyone of us doing this.
How do you continuously make your voice so perfect when you sing managing the flows and pitching so brilliantly?
It comes with training and a lot of practice as well as mastering your craft. I use to tell people you can’t stop learning as I rehearse all the time and I also learn from everybody. And of course, when I’m performing, I just don’t sing as I see it more like telling a story and putting in all those years of experience seeing movies. Just like an actor interprets a role, I try to do my own expression with my voice.
What makes a good music and what are the elements that must be involved?
First is the lyrics as it must be good and people must listen to your lyrics and get attention. Two is the sound as your music must complement the message you are trying to give. There has to be a perfect correlation between your music and your lyrics. Three, the sound quality must be top notch as you can have amazing lyrics, beats and voice but if the quality of the audio mix is terrible it would be nothing to write home about. So those three things for me I consider them very key and lastly a catchy melody.
As a vocalist and a voice coach what do you do differently to make your students distinct?
I allow them to express themselves and discover themselves but the only thing I do is hold their hands through the journey or path they want to go through. I don’t tell them to sound this way or that way as I allow them discover their sound because that’s what I did for myself.
How do you get inspiration to write songs?
I watch movies a lot and I love nature. Above all, I think where I get my inspiration to write songs is from God. I love to always listen to him and there is no song I compose that I don’t ask for him to inspire me on so God is my own inspiration. After God, I try to keep an open mind and I’m very conscious of my environment as I can be inspired by anything at any point in time.
The big moment of Ebenezer, how did you come about it and what truly inspired the song?
It’s a very funny story as none of these was planned as myself and my choir never set out to make a song that would blow. It was just an ordinary song that I wrote and the choir performed at our anniversary last year. I was even the one who posted it on our choir’s YouTube page and the intention for posting it was for us to have something out there. We did the anniversary last year November and the content had been with us for months but we never posted. Sometime around March or early April we decided to post it and that was it which ended becoming an house hold song. It’s humbling and I’m really grateful to God.
