Timaya Reveals Shocking Truth: He Wanted ₦3.5 Million for His Album but Only Got ₦500k — His Career Struggles Exposed!

Nigerian singer, Timaya, has recalled the challenges of tirelessly shuttling between Lagos and Port Harcourt, searching for a marketer for his debut 2007 album ‘True Story’.

Naija News reports that the 44-year-old, in an interview on the ‘Afrobeats Intelligence’ podcast, revealed that his big break came unexpectedly through a roadside CD vendor in Port Harcourt who connected him to an Alaba-based marketer.

The Port Harcourt-born music star disclosed that the marketer played his demo, which included the hit ‘Ogologoma’, upon arriving at the shop in Lagos, and the song immediately caught attention, with customers asking to buy it on the spot.

‘Dem Mama’s hitmaker said the marketer, impressed by the demand, offered him ₦500,000 for the album, far from the ₦3.5 million he had hoped to get from the album.

However, Timaya admitted that the ₦500,000 was a massive leap from the ₦45,000 outright sale offers he had received earlier.

He said, “He said ‘go and look for my brother now, he is in Alaba’. I called the guy, the guy said ‘who is this?’ and I said ‘it’s Timaya, your brother said I should call you’. He was like I should bring the demo to his shop the following morning.

“So I went there with all the songs I have been doing in the studio, immediately I gave him the CD, he slotted it in and we sat down. He was not a big marketer at that time but he was the one who marketed them Sky B and some other guys.

“He was concentrating more on the East. So when I gave him the demo, he played it while cleaning his shop. When he played ‘Ogologoma’, people were coming in to ask him that they wanted the song. He told them that it was not yet out.

“Different people came. He carried me to go eat and while eating, he asked me how much I was going to sell the album. I told him N3.5 million and he looked and smiled, saying no one is going to give me that amount. I asked why and he told me the last money he was going to give was N500 thousand.

“He also told me that if I did not come back to him by Monday, I should not call his phone again and this was Friday. Mind you, the first day I went to look for a marketer, they priced me N45,000 outright sale. As I was going back that day, I heard other upcoming artistes talking about how they were priced N25,000, N40,000.

“When I told them they priced me N500,000, they did not believe me. As I got down from the bus, I called him and told him I was ready. Then he told me to come to the market on Monday and take my money and that was it.”