My musical sojourn in Brazil –Breezzy

By Christy Anyanwu

Fast rising artiste, Emmanuel Odunola Thomson aka Breezzy was encountered at a recent event in Lagos.

His comportment and dress sense portrayed him as a showbiz celebrity. In this interview, he opened up on sundry issues, including his musical sojourn in Brazil. Here are excerpts:

Could you tell us briefly about your background?

I am an artiste, songwriter and actor. My genre is Afrobeats. Actually, I’m a Nigerian and Brazilian. I switch between Brazil and Nigeria, but I’m back home now. I’m home doing music.

Tell us about your journey into music, how did it start?

I started as a child; I was born in a church. My dad had a church. He was a prophet when he was alive. There were so many departments in the church, but I found myself in the music department because of my passion for music.

I started playing drums and was very active in the church, doing music, leading praise and worship even as a small boy. When I grew up, I started doing my own gigs, going to birthday parties, helping friends and from there, I started my own band.

Things were so slow at that time. You know, that was not the era of the Internet. So, I ventured into movies. I felt I could do it. I joined a drama group in Ebute Metta led by Dele Ogundipe. I got trained for like four years before I started producing my own movies. I also did backup for Big Bolaji. He’s late now.

Hustling was really tight at that time. It was tough doing movies and so, at some point, I japa (relocated) to Brazil. I needed to change my location, I needed to try my luck elsewhere. But since I couldn’t do music or movies there, I was just living my life, enjoying my life.

So, what exactly were you doing in Brazil?

I was doing business. I was bringing our natural resources like kolanuts, bitter kola, beads and our native attire to Brazil. Brazil is second home for Nigerians; we’re really accepted there. They cherish our deities like Sango, Orisa, Osun and so on. But at some point, I was really depressed. I needed to come back home because I felt there was a vacuum.

I felt I was not doing what I wanted to do, like being in the movie space and doing music. So, I had to come back home. I was sending music back home before, but I realised I had to be on ground in Nigeria to do music properly. And I have so much to give. Why wait? So, I started making plans to come back to Nigeria. It was really stressful and it’s still stressful because trying to break into the Nigerian market is not easy.

But thank God, I have friends, good friends who are interested in my craft and want to be a part of it, and have been supportive. So, we put up together and I dropped my EP in 2024, which was really beautiful and massive.

You speak three languages, how do you feel about that?

I was a teacher in Brazil and that made me learn so fast. I was doing that as a part time hustle. I was teaching basic communication. So, my first student was a Brazilian celebrity, who introduced me to a lot of people. She’s so lovely, God bless her. She introduced me to her friends and I started teaching them, making cool money and putting my life together. I was running some gigs in Brazil too, with Valentine, Obesere’s junior brother who lives in Brazil. I can sing juju and he can sing fuji. So, whenever we did gigs together, people got wild, and we made a lot of money.

You grew up in a church and you said you used to export traditional things to Brazil. How can you justify that?

They really wanted to have those things. For me, it’s culture. I respect everybody regardless of culture and religion. Whether you are a Muslim, Christian or Isese (traditionalist), I respect people.

I value people and I respect their space.

Let’s talk about the song allegedly stolen from you.

The song Poco Lee grabbed from me? I took some of his lines, the lines he normally used on TikTok like ‘hey Jago, hey Jago’, just trying to hail his friend, Jago, the owner of a high fashion store. So, I used that line because that was not a song for him. It was just a normal talk. So, I picked that line, and I went to tell him that, ‘hey bro, I used one of your talks in my song and I want you to be aware’. Probably, there’s a way he could help me pitch it. He has the audience. Maybe one way or the other I could benefit from that if he helped repost it. So, that’s why I used it, just to show some respect.

When I got there, he said he liked the song but he was not at peace with me. However, at the end of the day, he was at peace (with me). He shook my hand and said “okay”. But the next time I saw him at the Asake’s show, the Lungu Boy concert, he refused to say hello to me. The next thing I heard was his version of my song. So, it became an issue. I called him, I tried to talk to him; but he refused to talk to me. Actually, my lawyer served him but he didn’t respond. All TV stations like TVC, Silverbird called him, they tried to reach out to him, but he refused to talk. He’s trying to be bigger than the law.

But that is an encouragement for me, because if you can take a piece of what I have and make it your own, you’ve made a livelihood out of that.

The song is number one in Africa now. Hey Jago, what’s popping, Jago? – featuring Shoday. That’s my idea. That’s my song. My lawyer gave him an infringement letter and he refused to respond.

And do you know the worst part of it? Because that particular song came out with my EP, they had to bring down the whole album. On the first day of release, I got 5,000 organic downloads.

Because people were searching for their song, they were seeing my song and their own song. So, his record label decided to bring down my whole album. They couldn’t remove a particular song from an album, so they had to bring down the whole album. So, I lost all the revenue.

They are bigger than the law, that’s what they have been proving to me. You know, the engagement started online too. People called them out. A lot of people, even strangers called them out. They refused. My lawyers served them, they refused, they didn’t respond. They are proving to be bigger than the law.

Are you working on any song right now?

Right now, I’m working on Ayawa. I am dropping a song sometime this March. Yeah… Ayawa. We don’t want it to be like the regular song you hear. So, we are putting a lot of hard work into it. We’re done with the song, but we are working on some rhythms. We want to play it live for people to feel the groove, to enjoy the music.