DJ Cuppy is the cover star for the November 2017 edition of Vibes Magazine. The billionaire heiress who recently dropped a song with hitmaker Tekno opens up on career, life, family, and the need for more Nigerian parents to be like her parents, among other issues in the accompanying interview.
See excerpts and more photos below.
On an earlier interview where she was quoted as saying she wishes the billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola wasn’t her dad: ‘I would never ever apologize for what family I’m from and if anything, I can use my own opportunity to create more opportunities for others. I’m actually a hardworking young woman that has a passion for DJ-ing and that message has taken me a lot of years to come through. I’m still working on it, but I feel like, finally my work ethic is starting to speak for itself.’
On if singing might overtake the Disc Jockeying in the long run: ‘I definitely want to take the Calvin Harris approach. Calvin Harris sings a lot of his records but you’ll never see him leave the booth to pick a mic and sing. I’m a DJ, I love dj-ing, that’s my love… that’s my passion but yeah I don’t think I have a great voice, I think I have an okay voice and for me as an artist, it’s another way to express myself outside of dj-ing, so yeah I’ll probably sing a little bit more.
On her relationship with her parents: ‘I still am accountable; I still have my dad calling me like “what time did you come home yesterday?” I’m like “well it’s my job”. He’s like “ok, yeah I forgot” so it’s very structured, and I’m really grateful for that actually because you have to protect children…you have to guide them. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve learnt from them. I feel so blessed that I have parents that I can call and say “hey this is the situation, what is your advice?”. A lot of parents in Nigeria scare their kids away. They don’t make them feel like they can actually be close to them and kids hide away from that and it’s wrong, so Nigerian parents, be more like my parents. Love and nurture your children and please let them chase their dreams.’
On the easiest way to get into her parents’ bad books: The quickest way to be in my dad’s bad books is probably to be at a gig and he asks me to play a song and I don’t play it. Like, he takes it so seriously. He’s like “why didn’t you play that Fela song?”, I’m like “well because no one wanted to hear it”. And my mom, it is probably not to call her back. like I’m so busy, and when I don’t call her back she gets upset. she’ll say “Oh, I saw you put a picture on Instagram but you didn’t call me back” .
On the sort of relationship she has with her siblings: I have a great relationship with my siblings. I have an older sister called Tolani who’s actually really breaking into the music industry and I’m very excited for her. I have a younger sister called Temi who runs JTO fashion.com. She’ll always be my baby sister but she’s doing so well. I have a younger brother called Fewa who lives in London. He’s like the baby of the house. Me and my siblings are really close and I have to say that everything I’ve achieved at some point, each of them have been a part of it. Whether it’s my older sister taking me for gigs or Temi, my younger sister in general just supporting me, giving me advice, being my companion. It’s really nice having a house full of kids, I definitely want to have four kids.”
Read more here.
