Just yesterday, Davido was on American syndicated radio show, The Breakfast club to talk about his upbringing with his dad and his Afrobeat success with celebrated hosts, DJ Envy and Charlemagne tha God. Davido gave interesting insights into his life, which you may not have known before. He was both earnest and entertaining. Below are some major highlights from the interview to take away:

Davido initially made “Back When”  for Mpizzle:

Way back between 2008-2010, Davido made Demo tracks as a producer and gave them to artists. While his cousin, Mpizzle was still an upcoming artist, he produced a Demo track for him, but Mpizzle didn’t record it for some reason. At this point, Davido was just like “Fuck it I’m just gonna drop it, put some rapper on it and it got big”.  “Back When” featuring Naeto C, became Davido’s first single and a major hit in 2011.

Davido was on the run from his dad and 50 policemen:

All hell broke loose when Davido’s billionaire dad found out he had dropped out of school from his University in America, and returned to Nigeria without his consent. After releasing “Back When”, Davido started doing club gigs in Nigeria and one day, 50 policemen sent by his dad arrested his ex, his road manager and the promoter of the show, in a bid to get Davido. He was also threatened, as he recalled a phone conversation with his dad; “If you do not come to the police station, all your friends are going to Jail”.  Not long after the commotion, Davido dropped “Dami Duro” where he shouted out to his Dad. —“E ma Dami Duro Emi Omo Baba lowo, Don’t stop me, I’m the son of a rich man”. From that point on, he started to get more recognition from even his dad’s billionaire friends, such that his dad eventually had to accept the career path he had chosen.

He went to a school in the village —“Babcock”:

Seeing Davido’s dogged determination, his dad finally decided to meet him halfway, promising to fund two video shoots if Davido would agree to return to school in Nigeria. They settled on Babcock University, a school he fondly recalls being located “in the village”. The deal was to go to school on weekdays and do music away from school on the weekends. This is presumably how we got to see Davido in his videos for “Back When” and “Dami Duro”, and may be the backstory for the famous studio he flaunts on his Snapchat.

First endorsement at 17:

Davido landed his very first endorsement deal with a telephone company in Nigeria at the young age of 17 for about $100,000.

Son of Haiti’s ex-president sang Davido’s song word-for-word:

Speaking about the international reach of his song, Davido explains how surprised he was to find that Olivier Martelly, Haitian-American Singer and ex-president Michel Martelly’s son, knew his song “Word-for-word”, while he was in Haiti for the First Time Press Conference on February 2nd, 2018.

Take a look at Davido’s interview with DJ Envy and Charlamagne the God below.

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Fisayo is a journalist in search of words. Tweet at her @fisvyo

ICYMI, NATIVE 002: Davido took on the world in 2017. He won. Now, he’s up against his biggest challenge yet: Himself.