Don Jazzy: American Artistes Are ‘Scared’ To Work With Me

Micheal Ajereh Collins, Nigerian music producer and artiste better known as Don Jazzy, has said that foreign artistes are scared to make music with him. He said this while speaking in a recent interview conducted by Boiler room in collaboration with British Council. “Most of these American artistes would call you, they believe you have something that they like, so they call you to come and try something out”, Don Jazzy said. “A bunch of people that I have tried to work with or have tried to work with me chicken out at the end of the day because they aren’t really ready for the music change; they want me to tweak it till it gets back to their sound. “I can give you your sound, but then, you called me for something and then I try to give to my sound and I want you to do your thing on top of it which would give the sound a wider recognition but they say they aren’t ready for this switch drastically. I think they are still scared.” The 33-year-old Mavin boss said he started paying more attention to music during the Kennis Music era. “I would say I started listening more during the Kennis music time because after Storm records, then it was a time for Kennis music and they came with Tuface, Remedies and all. “At that point, I was still in secondary school and I was like “Yo! They were putting a lot of swags into this my work”. So I started taking note of the music and it started shaping me into what I would like to do but then, there was no way for me to do it.” Don Jazzy also said that Nigerian music is designed to make people happy during their struggles. “Everyone is struggling; we all have a problem in the country but there are sometimes when we need that peace of mind. “While some people are consciously trying to make you aware of what is going on in the struggle, there should be other people that would keep you happy when you are going through the struggles and that is where we come in.”