Nigerian singer, Ahmed Ololade, popularly known as Asake, shared a memorable incident from his early days in the music industry. He recalled how he was once booed on stage when he performed in just pants alongside scantily-clad ladies.
The incident occurred before he gained fame, and he admitted that he wanted to use the shock factor to grab attention, but it ended up backfiring.
During an appearance on the Ginger Yourself podcast, Asake explained, “Before I got the attention, I strived till I graduated from the university. I strived for like two years before people like accept me.”
He went on to describe the particular performance where things went awry. He wanted to perform a Fela Kuti song and decided to wear just pants and hold a saxophone. He also brought six girls on stage, asking them to be partially unclothed. However, the audience’s reaction was far from what he expected.
Asake narrated, “So there’s this performance. I wanted to perform Fela, so I was on pants and saxophone. I packed like six girls on stage. I asked them to be half-naked. You know, one thing about Nigerians is that once people are naked, they just forget about all the thing that is happening and just focus. But these people [at the concert] stubborn o. Those girls just walked in, then me too. I just walked in majestically as a star boy. I did not know where the first clap come from. The audience was like, ‘No, no, no.’ Everybody, like 9,000 capacity, clapping that they don’t want it.”