Tiwa Savage Speaks On her relationship and new album

And no album yet?
No album till now.

That’s shocking because you have made a sizable amount of money. Haven’t you ?
We thank God we are making a little to get us by. Finally the album is here and I’m very proud of it. It exceeded my expectations and I’m glad we waited because my mum always said ‘God’s time is the best’. Everybody wondered when the album was coming out, but there are some things you can’t rush. Besides, we don’t live in a society where it’s an album market. The singles sell more but your album has to speak of you as a person and that’s why I took my time in producing the album. I wanted to show my different sides musically. I wanted people generally to be able to accept my music and still be very musical in what I did.
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What’s the title?
The title of the album is Once Upon A Time.

Why?
It’s the way you start a story. When I was a kid, the story teller would say ‘once upon a time’ and then we would reply ‘time time’. Basically it’s a story, like you
said many artistes have come in the industry and they have gone. I feel like my story deserves a voice and it can encourage other people. Budding artistes can hear my story and be encouraged. Old artistes that have come and tried and didn’t succeed can still see my story as a motivation. So it’s basically a story of motivation for artistes especially the female artistes like you rightly said. That’s why it’s called Once Upon A Time , because it’s a story.

When are you releasing the album?
Later this month by God’s grace. We are still walking back and forth with the marketers to see exactly when, because a lot of albums are dropping this month.

What are the tracks we should be expecting on the album?
A few of the tracks you already know. Kele Kele, Without my Heart and Love Me . I have a track called Esim Afia and it’s a track I really love. There’s another called Wanted which is a fusion of Reggae, Hip Hop and Afro and I also have a lot of slow songs because other people keep on saying ‘Tiwa we know you as a singer and you have been doing all this ‘Lamba’ songs” . I also have a song called Middle Passage and a song called Get Low which is a ballad . I also have a Baje song called Ileke.

So we should expect a lot of party tunes ?
Yes definitely. Like I said, I had to satisfy the market and that’s what we like to do in Nigeria, we like to party.
Did you write all the songs?

Yes, I did. For some of the songs I had co-writers. Don Jazzy, my producer, an amazing song writer co-wrote some of the songs, some other songs my manager, Tunji Balogun co-wrote. So, I worked on every single song on the album.

Did you feature any artistes?
Yes, I did. I had Flavour on one of the songs, General Pype. Obviously Don Jazzy and a couple of other artistes.

Why did you go for Mavin, a lot of us thought you were going to stay with cecil?
At a time Cecil (Hammond) was more into events like Rhythm Unplugged and all the other stuff and I have been very close to the Mavins, Dr Sid, Wande Coal, D’prince and Don Jazzy, so when the Mavin concept came up with a void that needed a female voice to fill, it only made sense to make the transition into Mavin Records. I’m still very close to Flytime Entertainment. We still work with them. No bad blood at all.

Why did you choose him?
It’s funny, because we used to ask each other, ‘why did you fall in love with me?’ But I don’t think there’s really a ‘why me’. It just happened and I think when you truly love someone you can’t say I love him because of this, because if you say that and another thing happens the love vanishes. For instance if you say I love him because he has money and the person becomes broke, you stop loving the person. I can’t really say why, I just know that my heart chose him and his heart chose me. We were friends first of all and we worked together , so we were always with each other. I got to know him in his natural element, he got to know the real me behind all the weave, the makeup and the glamour and he got to love who I was.

You were romantically involved with Don Jazzy and Cecil Hammond. Did anything really happen with those two?
No, not at all. I won’t say I don’t know why people would think that because it’s expected in our industry. Nothing happened and I was really sad when I heard about Cecil , because I was really close to his wife and he is a great family man. A man who loves his wife and children and that really broke my heart that people will actually come up with stuff like that. There’s actually no truth in it, none at all.

source: soundcity.tv