Teni the entertainer has opened up on how her seven years in the university inspired her hit single, ‘Uyo Meyo’.
In a recent documentary, Teniola Apata opened up on her world as an entertainer, her inspiration and her dream to win a Grammy.
Teni is so confident of her talent and abilities that she says she will not only win Grammys but also perform and sell out stadiums globally.
“I believe I will win the Grammys, I know I will win the Grammys, I will win the Grammys and I will sell out stadiums around the world. I just know, it’s just in my soul,” she said during the 12 minute-long interview.
In the early part of the interview, Teni reminisced on how she has prophesied greatness to herself and how it came to be.
“I told someone, you better take my picture, you better take my number because I will be a superstar. I was just saying it, do I even know what I was saying? I was just saying my own, but I just spoke it to the universe,” she reminisced.
On her personality, the ‘Askamaya’ singer says she’s known to be a stubborn lady, who does solely what she wishes and not others wish for her.
“People I grew up with, like friends, have always known me to be a stubborn person,” she began. “I do what I want to do because I just realise from a very young age that look here, how long am I going to be on this earth? I need to enjoy my life, as long as I am not harming anybody, I need to do what is best for Teni. I would rather fail at what I want to do than fail doing what someone told me to do. I’m comfortable in what I am wearing, I mean if I was wearing all these tight things, I won’t be comfortable,” she said.
For Teni, people’s worth is in their person and not their estimated worth. She says, “Everybody has something to offer, I can’t do your job, can’t hold the camera like the cameraman but you have to be with them to realise because in Nigeria, you being special depends on how much money you have. People don’t know their worth is in their skin.”
Teni‘s confidence in her talent when she started was so strong that she told her label owner, Dr. Dolor that he would be making a huge mistake if he fails to sign her. “Here’s what I told my boss before he signed me. I told my boss (Dr. Dolor) that if you don’t sign me, you are going to be making a very bad decision because I’m different.”
The 26-year-old BET awards nominee says her hit single, ‘Uyo Meyo’ is good music. In her words, “Uyo Meyo is good music. I have had governors call me because of ‘Uyo Meyo’ and I sat across Dangote because of ‘Case’. Isn’t that good music? Actually, I saw Dangote twice in a row, why? Isn’t that good music? ‘Uyo Meyo’ was a song that was just from the bottom of my heart.
“I was just in my car driving to graduation and on my way to graduation, I was listening to a song I had and I called the producer and said send me the beat because the beat was so spiritual and I just started freestyling in my car and that’s just how ‘Uyo Meyo’ came out. It just came from me being grateful to God for everything thus far. For me, even being able to complete the programme, it took me 7 years to graduate from the university,” she told her interviewer.
During the interview, Teni confesses to loving roadside stuff that includes local Nigerian snacks.
She went further to share what she has learned after one of her hit singles, ‘Case,’ was released in Nigeria. She said, “I learned something vital when I dropped ‘Case’. If you want to keep making good music, you can not think about making a hit song, you just have to make good music. You just have to have that juice and mindset that I want to make good music. I don’t know if it’s a hit or not, and if it’s a hit, we thank God. If it’s not a hit we keep trying.”
Continuing, she said, “By the time Askamaya blew, I was in America, they were telling me that my song has blown in Nigeria. When I returned to Lagos, people were already calling me olomoge askamaya and I was like…It blew up in London like crazy, like a wildfire.”
For her legacy, Teni wants to live a fully well-spent one. “I want to make sure that when I am dead and people gather around me to sing goodbye, and they are singing it is well, I will know that it is well. And I live my life for myself and I don’t leave my life for anybody.”
