Nigerian gospel artist, Benita Okojie, talked to us about the inspiration behind her music and why she chose this part.
Okojie started out singing mixes of Edo and Yoruba music alongside her siblings. She came into the limelight with her single “Osemudiamen” in 1998 at 10.
Why I Took A Long Break From Fame – Gospel Artiste, Benita Okojie Narrates
Her music career was independently managed by her father who had worked with musicians including Onyeka Onwenu, Felix Liberty, Chris Okotie, and Sonny Okosun.
He was credited with the production, distribution and marketing of her music. In 1999, Okojie performed at the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA Under-21 World Cup which was hosted in Nigeria (Nigeria 99).
She also performed at Nigeria’s 40th independence anniversary celebration in 2000. Her single titled ”Unity Games” was the 8th All Africa Games theme song.
She has been featured on a reality TV show titled Moving Up the Squad alongside Nollywood actresses. She works alongside her husband and still releases music.
You were away from the scene completely for a really long time, was that as a pressure some pressure you went through as a child?
“It wasn’t pressuring actually, if there’s anything God really help my parents to do is that they made me live a pretty normal life even though I was kind of popular.
“I didn’t even know how popular I was until I grew older because even though we saw people screaming my name I was still doing house chores like a normal kid. It wasn’t like they took that whole childhood memory away from me because I was popular.
“I took I break when I went to the university because I knew it was taking away a lot of things, sometimes I will leave school for programmes, in a day I will have three programs and I will leave school for it and it made me unable to catch up with things at school and it was really hard.
“It was beginning to affect things and my mum and dad were very intentional about me finishing school, they didn’t want me to be to drop out halfway just because of my career.
“So they said to me they were going to take off some of my time so I could focus on school and so I did that and when I was done, my dad passed away and that was also another experience for me and at some point, I didn’t even want to sing again because it was just really hard and my dad was very instrumental to my being really successful in music.
“Thankfully God sent me an amazing man who is also my husband and he gave me the push to continue music”.
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