Nigerian music star, Iyanya Onoyom Mbuk, known by his stage name, Iyanya, has declared that he is in the same category with the likes of industry heavyweights, Davido, Olamide and Wizkid.
He argued in a series of tweets that he deserves to be placed on the same pedestal with afrobeats.
The ‘Your Waist’ crooner was responding to a fan who tweeted; “When we mention the Old cats like Olamide, Davido and Wizkid, Iyanya should be mentioned too.
“He dropped two hit songs in 2011. Kukere and Your waist” and he has been consistent since then.”
Agreeing with the post, Iyanyan simply wrote; “Well.”
He also told another fan with similar sentiment, that his songs got global acceptance at a time when the internet wasn’t popular.
The fan wrote; “Shout out to @Iyanya he really took Afrobeats to the world. Kukere was a huge song globally! As big as skelewu, (pls correct me gently if I’m wrong) but the impact cannot be erased by even banter.”
Iyanya replied; “They don’t know. Zero internet penetration and our songs were everywhere. They can o my tweet according to the information they have. Let’s count Hits for Hits and tell me how many go fit match”.
The artiste revealed that at the peak of his career between 2012 and 2014, he and Triple MG Boss, Ubi Franklin made moves to collaborate with Nicki. He said after Kukere was released and became a massive hit; they pondered over the next big song.
According to Iyanya, his music producer, D’Tunez modified the beat for Kukere and they used it to create ‘Your Waist’ which also received huge airplay.
He said that he and Ubi Franklin decided to take the song international and it was agreed that Nicki Minaj should be featured on the remix.
That was how they started reaching out to people and they were able to get the connect to meet the Super Bass crooner.
The singer revealed that they flew out to Atlanta to arrange a meeting with Nicki per the feature and were informed that it would cost $200,000 to get her on a track.
Iyanya said they contacted many people for financial assistance, but they were only able to raise $70,000 and Nicki’s management said it would not suffice.
He explained that the money they spent on transport and other miscellaneous while trying to meet her amounted to 23,000 dollars which was about 4 million naira in 2013.
The budding singer said they eventually returned to Nigeria after an unsuccessful outing.
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