How failing maths led me to music – Zlatan

By Seyi Babalola

Nigerian artist Zlatan Ibile has linked a personal academic loss to the surprising start of his music career.

The 30-year-old recently stated in an interview with Africa Now Radio with Nandi Madida on Apple Music that his inability to be accepted to university opened the way for his rise to fame.

According to Zlatan, he had planned to start university in 2011, but his ambitions were thwarted when he failed accounting and mathematics, leaving him without the required credentials.

“I was supposed to go to university in 2011/12, but I did not have my complete papers. I failed mathematics and accounting, so I could not go to school that year,” he said.

The “Zanku” hitmaker said that he had unexpected free time because he had a year to wait before he could reapply.

Zlatan, a former church boy and choir member who played drums, claimed that his entry into recording came about practically by chance when a friend who had never performed music before played a song he had composed.

Zlatan followed him to the studio, intrigued.

He said his first time in front of a microphone was, by his own admission, a humorous experience.

He, however, said when he played the rough recording for his siblings, their reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

“But like you said, I used to be a church boy,” he continued.

“So when I failed my examination and I couldn’t go to school, I started going to the studio. One of my friends just came back home from housing one day, and he played this song. And I knew him very well. I knew him from church. I knew that he has never made music before.

“We went to the studio, and then for the first time, I went on the microphone. It was so funny. And then I came back home. To me, the song was rubbish. It was not making sense. It was my first time.”

“When I went back home and I played it for all my siblings, and they started making me feel like Jay-Z that day,” he said, a comparison that gave him the confidence to continue visiting the studio.

He said by the time he finally gained admission to university a year later, he still “didn’t have up to three songs”.

“And then, I just started following my friend to the studio from there because I had to sit out one year before going back to school. And I didn’t have up to three songs,” he said.

Zlatan said on campus, he registered for a talent show during his very first semester, driven more by his newfound enjoyment of rap than by any expectation of winning. He said he was skeptical that his raw, unmixed tracks could compete.

“I was loving the way people were carrying me, who is an artist now. So I went back to school one year after, and then my first semester in school, the rap competition came up,” he added.

“And then, I did not believe that anybody can actually win a car off music, off the kind of music I make. I did not even have up to five tracks.

“The songs were not mixed and mastered. They were just pre-recorded songs. That was the moment I started enjoying the rap. I started enjoying the rap then.

“So, the competition just came up when I was trying to get into this rap game. And then, to cut the story short, out of 140 candidates, I won the car.

“I won the car when I was 19 years old. Yeah, I was so amazed. This was my first semester in school. I have not even attended the first examination in the school. This was just three weeks into the school.”