Famous Nigerian singer, Kingsley Okonkwo, widely recognized as Kcee, shared that he kicked off his career as a DJ. He mentioned in a recent interview on the latest Afrobeats Podcast that being a DJ was a family tradition.
The singer behind “Ojapiano” shared that before changing careers, his father and brother, E-Money (Emeka Okonkwo), co-founder of Five Star Music, were both DJs.
He explained, “My dad used to be a DJ and sold records. I grew up in a house where my dad sold records. I knew the music of all the old-school artists because I was selling their records when I was about 5 or 6 years old. In secondary school, I was running a full record store and DJing at parties. E-Money and I were both DJs, so I was exposed to a lot of artists.”
Recently, Kcee revealed that he made more money from his joint gospel album with Okwesili Eze Group, titled ‘Cultural Praise,’ than he did from his entire secular music career. The 44-year-old singer from Anambra State disclosed this during a recent interview with Cool FM in Lagos.
According to Kcee, despite criticisms of the gospel album, it turned out to be his most streamed project to date. He said, “When I did the gospel album, and many people were saying, ‘It’s over, he is actually going back to his village. Now he’s taking the music to the village.’ That was terrible. When I heard that, I thought, ‘Okay, let’s see how it goes.’ And it didn’t turn out that way. I made more money from the gospel album than ever before in my entire career.”