How I Lost Millions Trying To Feature Nicki Minaj

Onoyom Mbuk, known as Iyanya, has recounted how he and his crew lost millions of naira trying to get the famous American-Trinidadian, Nicki Minaj.

After the success of his breakthrough song, “Kukere,” the former Project Fame West Africa winner admitted that he and his crew felt pressure to create another major single.

They had already recorded “Flavour,” according to Iyanya, but they didn’t think it should be the follow-up single to “Kukere.”

He said that his producer, D’Tunez, changed the beat for Kukere before using it to create the song “Your Waist,” which had a lot of radio play.

He claimed that his team was not happy with the song’s popularity, so his record label’s head, Ubi Franklin, recommended a remix with Nicki Minaj to increase the song’s sales.

He claimed that after traveling to Atlanta, Georgia, to visit Nicki Minaj for the feature, they learned that signing her to a song would cost $200,000, which they were unable to pay at the moment.

Iyanya said, “Ur waist was so massive we decided it should go international and we needed the right artiste to help with that journey. @ubifranklin1 suggested Nicki Minaj and I asked how we’re gonna pay for that, he laughed and said ‘if your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.”

On Twitter, the performer posted the following, “So Kukere was so massive we did all we could to get it out there and then came the pressure of the next single.

“We had “Flavour” already produced and recorded but for some reason, we felt it wasn’t the next single after Kukere. On one beautiful morning, we decided to remake “Kukere” and turn it into a new song that became “Ur waist”.

“Big-ups to D’tunes who changed everything and we recorded “Ur waist” and we were clear that it was the next single.