By ANOZIE EGOLE & KEHINDE AJOSE
Halle Emordu is a singer, dancer and performer. In this
interview, the Edo State born talented artiste talks about her
life and journey into music.
How long have you been doing music?
I would say that I started doing music professionally in 2007
not as a singer, but as a dancer. I went for a dancing
competition where I represented Nigeria in South Africa in
2007. I also contested in Dance Hip Hop International
competition in 2008 and I won to represent Nigeria in Las
Vegas. When I came back, I partook in the first edition of
Maltina Dance hall. After that, I decided to do music to
match my dancing career. Before then, I was singing in
church but I didn’t really take it serious, because my sisters
were doing that. When I came back from those
competitions, I decided to combine my dancing skills with
singing because I didn’t see any female artiste doing it. So I
officially started singing in 2009. I had the first video called
Hallelicious. Then my other single was Dirty shower.
I have a video for Dirtycious which went viral and people
started saying that the video is controversial. After that, I
went into events. I did Calabar carnival like three to four
times and I started doing other shows. In 2013, I dropped
my other video Pricky Loving and Nanana. I have not done
anything after that. I have been working undercover,
watching the industry. I have done stuffs with other artistes
but not as a video vixen. I’ve been working till tragedy
struck and we lost our boss in the record label. He wasn’t
really the owner of the label, the label is like a group of
people coming together to form a record label, but he was
the face of the label. So, when he passed away last year, we
had a lot of challenges. Everyone was traumatised because
it was unexpected.
Why did you say Dirty Shower, was a controversial video?
It wasn’t but people said it was because they saw a girl in
the shower. I was the person in the shower and it was
directed by Seasan. There were many brains behind that
video and we sat down and thought about it. It was just like
a Caribbean video and that was what we wanted it to look
like. The song itself, Dirty shower, means many things.
When I say I’m too dirty I need someone to wash me up, it
means I am hungry, come and take me out.
You said you started with dancing and now music, have you
given up on dancing?
No, I do both – it is a 50-50 thing. I still teach dance, I have
private classes where I do that and it does not clash with
my music time. I have time for my studio and I also have
time for dance. I still dance, it is just that I don’t push
dancing out to let people know that I am a dancer. People
who know what I do, still call me when they need my
services. They still ask me to choreograph in their videos. I
do not dance in the videos, I teach dancers what to do in the
videos and they do it.
Tell us about your song with Patoranking?
Yes, I did a song with Patoranking, titled, Another Day, and it
has been released. It is a love song between a guy and a
girl. When we were in the studio working on the song, many
things came to our minds. We asked ourselves, what are we
going to talk about? Do we talk about club or the normal
boy/girl thing? Patoranking said we should just do anything
we feel like doing. He was just looking at me and was
making fun of me. Everything about that song happened
that night, we started recording that song around 1 a.m. and
we finished around 3 a.m. After that we listened to the song
and liked it and that was it.
Did you have working with Patoranking in mind before that
time?
Yes, I did, but we didn’t have any music in mind. We just
came together that day and worked on that song. We were
like eight people in the studio, we started with free-styling
and then we did the song. I never had any music in mind
when we entered the studio.
What inspires your kind of music?
Everything around me – my environment, my friends and
neighbours. Sometimes, ideas come to my mind too. Like in
my single, Dirty Shower, I was actually on the phone, I was
quarreling with someone on the phone and I fell like
strangling the person for calling me by that time of the day.
And I said, I feel dirty and want to take a shower, and that
was how the music came about. I also needed to do a slow
song.
Is it true that you went naked to promote your musical
video?
It was my video Dirty Shower. It was a day to my birthday
and the song was supposed to drop on my birthday and I
did a photo shoot for the cover of the single. I do not know
how Linda got to see the pictures and the whole pictures
went viral on internet. Till date, we still do not know how
those pictures got to Linda and she was the person that
uploaded them on the internet. So, I called my manager to
ask how my pictures got to Linda Ikeji’s blog, he said he
didn’t know. I told him to take care of that. So he called her
to remove the pictures from her blog which she did. But you
know how the system is, other blogs have already collected
the pictures. It was not a nude picture. I covered my boobs
and I wore a micro short and I was in a shower with waters
dropping on me just to portray the title of the song very well.
I do not have issues with that, because it is something that
has happened and I do not let it bother me. After all, people
wear bikinis and you don’t expect me to be in the shower
with my clothes on. Linda uploaded the photo and other
bloggers started trending it with different headlines. On the
day I was supposed to be receiving happy birthday calls,
what I got were calls telling me that my naked pictures are
on the internet.
Did that affect your brand?
I won’t say that it really affected my brand but, that the way
the pictures came out was not how we really wanted
because I see myself as next Nigeria’s Janet Jackson.
What is so unique about your music?
I am a singer and a dancer. I try as much as possible to be
different in my music. Just like my first video single, it was
not what everybody expected from me. They wanted to see
a poor song but I stepped up. When they saw the song, they
liked it. Everybody has what works for them – if my label
allows me to do it, then I am good to go.
Why is your music all about love?
Growing up, we were taught that we need to love our
neighbours like ourselves. Well, it is actually intentional and
my manager has asked me that question before. I told him
maybe I am into love more and I want to have a song that
people can sing and dance to with their partners. In one of
my tracks Only You, I imagined myself getting married.
Also, Hallebaby and Falling in Love dropped last year.
Falling in Love is a true life story, I had a crush on
somebody and as a girl I have shown the person all the
signs and he seemed not to notice me. There was this guy
that I had a crush on every time I see him, but he never
really got my attention. Hallebaby was between me and my
co-writer, Sammy, he is also an artiste. We wrote the song
together like I have a neighbour who is always looking at
me but I never noticed him. Hallebaby was about someone
having a crush on me which I never noticed, while Falling in
love is about me crushing for someone and the person
never noticed. So they are opposite of each other.
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