I made friends in Nigeria, but I was often alone, literally by myself. It was the loneliest time of my life. I used to sit alone in my hostel room for hours, until the boredom became so extreme that I began to feel I was losing myself. So I picked up my guitar and, although I couldn’t really play guitar, I plucked away and wrote songs from chords. I wrote, wrote, wrote and sang, sang, sang: that’s all I did.
Lagos is a very crazy place and I had a few life-threatening experiences there, so I learned to survive during that time. It wasn’t easy being a foreigner, but I made it through. My mum was concerned about me being there and my grandma was even more concerned. Everybody around me was concerned; everybody was scared for me.
But I was looking for adventure; I wanted to go and see where the real singers were and I ended up mixing with some of the greatest singers and musicians that I’ve ever heard in my life. I went through the shantytowns with my guitar and jammed with some really fantastic people.
I recorded my first song in a friend’s little home studio, managed to blag my way into a radio station called Cool FM and persuaded them to play it on the radio. After that it got quite a bit of radio play and all my friends from school heard it, which was amazing.
I didn’t like the way they were treating the kids at the first school I went to, so I spoke out and voiced my opinions to the head. It was like a breath of fresh air for the other students. I was totally confident about speaking out and they were behind me all of the way. But the headmaster expelled me within days of being there. As I walked out of the school, all the students applauded me. Some of them were in tears because I was leaving.
I had to find a new school quickly. I looked through a newspaper and saw an advert for a school with great music facilities, so I thought I’d go and try to get in. Fortunately, I was accepted. I immediately connected with my teachers and, within two weeks of being there, I became head boy. I did my A Levels there.
A lot of the kids in the school communicated with each other through music, especially through drumming. It soon struck me that people in Nigeria sing because they love singing, not because they’re trying to achieve a record deal.
I set up my own business in Lagos—a digital photography business—to make a little change on the side. In my spare time, I volunteered for a motherless babies’ home. I also did other charitable things at weekends, like painting the walls of a home that took in orphans, and taking kids out to little theme parks with slides and merry-go-rounds.
When you’re looking after children, you become very emotionally attached to them. Some of these kids have lost their parents to street gangs, warfare, an accident or AIDS and they really could do with a good home, so it’s heartbreaking. What kept me going was feeling that I was providing some consistency to their lives, if only for a while. They were always so happy to see me; I was a bit like an older brother. I tried to help them and guide them; I played a lot of games with them. Of course, it gave me a sense of soulful, emotional satisfaction as well.
Originally, my dream was to have a huge solo career and then to become an entrepreneur, with a massive empire and my own record label. Then I was going to put together a boy band. I even started writing for the band while I was in Nigeria. But when I came back to England, I thought, you know what? My life isn’t going to go that way any more. I thought no more about the boy band and went to university to study Events Management, in the meantime focusing on my solo career.
My mum has been a fantastic encouragement to me. She has always believed in what I do, every step of the way. Most parents would have said, ‘Finish university first!’ But my mum said, ‘Study hard, but focus on your dreams as well. Keep at your music, because you don’t have any time to waste. Don’t wait until after university to follow your dreams, because then you will have waited four years.’
She has always been an incredible support to me. She was a qualified lawyer and when I was born she decided not to pursue her career in order to look after me full time. To me, that sacrifice seems amazing, because if I were to give up my music for a child, that would be a big deal. It’s a big deal to give up everything you’ve worked hard for, after getting a degree. You’re ready to go out into the world, but then you decide not to. My mum has never expressed any regret, though. She’s so much about her kids—my little brother, little sister and me. She is the most selfless person I know.
My mum has multiple sclerosis, a condition that attacks the nervous system. She was diagnosed about seven years ago. Her mobility is very restricted and her eyesight is not as good as it used to be, but when I saw her the other day, there seemed to be a little bit of an improvement. We’re always hoping.
It was a very confusing time for me when she started getting ill. I was in my first year of secondary school and suddenly my mum couldn’t walk to the bus stop with me. She couldn’t go to the supermarket by herself: she’d literally pass out. There was a time when I had to pull her out of the bath, because she had passed out.
I remember going to school one day and breaking down and crying and crying. My English teacher sat me down and asked me what was wrong. I told her what was going on and she was very helpful, but it was a very hard time. I’m a lot stronger now because Mum is much stronger in terms of her attitude to her health. She refuses to disable herself by going in a wheelchair; she prefers to struggle with walking. I see her as much as I can; I’m hopeful one day that we’ll find a cure.
I revisited the idea for a boy band partly because of my mum. She was becoming more and more unwell and every night I used to sit at home, thinking to myself that music could be a way out of our predicament. A big part of my dream is to give her a better environment. I had to work something out.
In the beginning, I worked for a record label in Carnaby Street for free just so that I could find a way into the industry. I was performing on the live circuit all round the country. Anywhere there was a stage and a microphone…
To my surprise, I was scouted for a couple of boy bands. I didn’t think I was fit for a boy band, though. I just didn’t think I was conventionally pretty enough, and my voice was quite soulful. But since I was being scouted for all these Sony BMG boy bands, I decided that this must be the route for me. But after a while, I wasn’t happy with the boy band situation that I found myself in. My instinct told me that it wasn’t right. So I made a decision. I thought, I’m going to go out, find my own boys and put together my own band that fits my vision.
What with Lemar and Craig David, I felt that there wasn’t really any space for another black solo singer. But I just saw a gap in the market for boy bands. There are no boy bands out there right now, I thought, so I can really do something very interesting here. I can form a unique, exciting band that I would like to be involved in.
I put the band together in about two or three weeks. So many people told me that it would never work and that there was no way I could do it, but I was adamant that I could. I literally did not sleep during that time. I was constantly on the internet looking for members; I was everywhere looking for members. It was all that I thought about, all of the time.
Slowly but surely, I found people. I went all around central London and advertised in all the music shops. The ad said, ‘I’m looking for members for a SuperGroup.’
I auditioned a lot of guys, not just for vocal ability, but for looks and personality, ambition and attitude. I realised from my previous experience