Abdulrasheed Bello known professionally as Skillz or JJC Skillz is a Nigerian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and television producer.

JJC Skillz earned recognition in Nigeria after the release of one of his singles, “We Are Africans,” an Afrobeats anthem.

In this interview with ENIOLA DANIEL, he spoke about his latest movie, Hakeem, Seeking justice.

Hakeem seeking Justice Movie is the first ever action film in Nigeria, well shot and falls into Hollywood Movie categories.

In Hakeem, an ex-military officer returns home to find his family is murdered. Hakeem embarks on a blood-soaked path of vengeance. The deeper he goes, the more he realizes the conspiracy is far greater than he imagined.

Why the title ‘Hakeem’?

The title was originally ‘Seeking Justice’ but when we started the shoot and made T-shirts and caps, people were starring at us and thought it’s a movement. When we started marketing, we were asked who we were seeking justice for, and I said, ‘Hakeem’ and that is how it ended up as Hakeem.

I believe that Nigeria has conquered drama as a genre. Nigeria has also conquered epic film making except Action and Horror films. I went with action because I love action films. It’s very difficult to do an action movie because it’s technical and we don’t want people to make mockery of us. We have almost 10 fight sequences in the film including car chasing, explosions, all out chaos and action we would expect from Hollywood movies.

What brought about the story line?

Seeking justice or justice. I believe special forces are the only league of security that have the capacity to do what Hakeem did in the movie. Generally, Nigerians are not violent or into arms conflict. I needed someone that can embody vengeance and able to deliver and the actor for the role of Hakeem fits.

What do you want audience take away from the story of Hakeem?

We wanted to explore an action-packed movie that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats, while still portraying a captivating and emotional story.

I want the audience to know that Nigeria has upgraded and we can do it. My dream when I started music was that Nigerians will one day win the Grammys and I am alive to say it has come to pass. I am prophesying that Nigerians will win the Oscars with movies made in Nigeria.

How difficult it is do to action movies compare to other genres?

Hakeem is an action film. There’s stunt, special effect and there’s visual effect so, the layer of the three combined to create Hakeem.

We shot the whole film before we shot the film; when I finished writing the script, I called upcoming actors and gave them lines and we went for the shoot, we got our stunt actors and shot on five sequences, edited the movie, took all the action part and delivered to the actors for them to learn, then we trained them.

We gathered the actors in the gym and started rehearsing. The whole process took us two years. Nollywood movies don’t give that time but this was necessary to achieve the best.

What are the interesting things about the characters?

I realized on set that I haven’t changed a character’s name from detective Chioma and Chioma Akpotha asked that it shouldn’t be changed when I tried to during shooting and she goes with the name ‘Detective Chioma.

I wanted to create a powerful female character in the movie because we have a lot of macho testosterones flying everywhere and I needed someone to match the energy and chase them down.

I love Nigerian actors, they don’t just get scripts and go through them, they embody it. Nigerian actors have evolved from the day of getting a script and reading lines. They get the script and wear the character. I picked the actors because I have watched them.

Two years is a lot of time to produce a move, were you under pressure to release the film before now?

I would have loved to do the movie in one year which would have been cheaper. There were equipment we had to buy and bring them into the country. We had to go to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), speak with the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and others. We tested different things so that nobody will criticize the movie, everything has to look real.

Why did you explore music in promotion of the movie?

Music is a powerful tool and that is why Afrobeats is at its current level. Different producers and different content creators have different ways to promote their content. Music comes naturally for me. I transformed all the actors in Omo Ghetto, The Saga, into musicians and did a theme song.

I love music, it’s a passion while Tv and Video production is what I studied in school.

Do you have challenges selecting or sharing roles?

I thought about the characters beforehand. I had other people I wanted but some were either not in the country or booked but for every character A, there was B and C options. I had 80 per cent of the people I wanted. The biggest challenge is gathering them in one place but I was able to achieve that.

Zuby Michael told me, ‘bro, I don’t know how you did it. I have never been in a movie with Nino and Deyemi in the same scene.’ Grace and preparation worked for me.

Why did you bring Regina Daniels into the movie?

I picked every single character in the movie because I was looking for someone that can ‘kill it’ and matches the energy. When you think of Regina, the first thing that comes to mind is, ‘she’s someone’s wife’. When you think of Bolanle Ninalowo, you think of macho, and when I picked Deyemi Okanlawon, I think of someone who always act tough. So, we have Hakeem (Deyemi) vs Gentle man(Ninalowo). Who do you think will win in real life?

Where was the movie shot?

The whole scenes were shot in Abuja. We shot in Abuja because it doesn’t have any area boys (street urchins) harassing us. For an action film, you need good roads and in the movie there’s multiple location and we get to the locations without traffic logjam. I love Lagos, it’s the Centre of Excellent but they have made Lagos very difficult for filmmakers. People offered me their place to shoot, guys in Abuja were behind us, clearing the roads but in Lagos, you are greeted with Owo Mi Da (Where is my money?) and as soon as they see Nino, I will be charged N1 million.

Which scene(s) do you consider more challenging?

The most challenging was the opening scene. It took three days to shoot the first scene. the first seven minute is action.

The most difficult one is the car chasing. An actor had to leave the set that day and I thought we would be able to shoot between 1.a.m to 6.a.m. We should be able to shoot a car chasing but we shot severally and could not get what we wanted, and we would lose the actor and the scene if the sun rises so, I solved it by taking the camera into the car and shot the actor only.

Two weeks later, I came back to shoot the same scene but this time, with no actor, just stunt men driving the cars and I had to match exactly what they were doing with the scene and put it together.

Who did the effect?

The effect is a combination of the brilliant work of my big brother, Suleiman Bello and his wife.

We documented the process of making the movie and we will present it to the whole world so they can learn from it.