Afrobeats diva, Tiwatope Omolara Savage, better known as Tiwa Savage, has said overzealous fans constantly pit her against other female artistes in the Nigerian music industry.
The Kele Kele Love and Stamina hitmaker disclosed this in a recent interview with BET. “Fans always try to pit me against other female artists. Any new female artiste that comes up, they would be like, ‘Yo, she is coming to take her throne, and I would go out of my way to make friends with them (new female artistes) because it is not a competition.
“The real competitions are the male artistes. I was happy that Tyla, a female artiste, won the maiden Best African Music Performance category at the Grammys over the male nominees,” she said.
Speaking further during the interview, the award winning songstress, also opened up on the opposition she faced earlier in her career when she returned to Nigeria from the United Kingdom to pursue her musical career.
According to her, she was initially prevented from performing at music shows and concerts in the country on the grounds of her outfits which were considered too revealing. She revealed that some of her earlier music videos were not aired due to being deemed indecent.
“When I first moved back, I would turn up at a show and they would say I can’t perform because my outfit was too risqué. It was a cultural issue. Even some of my first music videos were not played on the television because they were considered indecent. I wasn’t even wearing bikinis,” Tiwa said.
Notwithstanding the challenge, the self-professed Africa original bad girl said she remained focused, committed to and with her style. She stated that instead of the backlash breaking her, it made her more stubborn, making her dresses become even more revealing, which further aggravated the online bashes against her.
Surmounting the oddities, the demand for her music and performances became too significant to ignore. Those who hitherto rejected her had no choice but to accept her style, thus, allowing her to perform and have her music played, as her fanbase continued to expand each passing day.
In another development, the Koroba singer revealed the inspiration behind her movie, Water & Garri. The Berklee College of Music trained artiste said she got the movie idea while she was drunk. “When I was drunk in my room and when I brought the idea to my amazing team, they didn’t make me feel stupid. They just said this iTiwa Savages a brilliant idea,” Tiwa explained.
