Bayo Somoye
Adaeze Anaekwe encounters one of Nigeria’s leading music business gurus who is bringing home the magic wand that he wields in the US
If there is one thing James Bayo Somoye loves, it is working in the entertainment environment, a passion he developed as a teenager in secondary at Igbobi College, Lagos. He was part of the school band known as The Hidden Truth. Interestingly, the band had Dele Sosimi on keyboard, Dotun Ransome Kuti also played keyboard, Femi Kuti was on sax. Somoye was the lead vocalist. The group broke up because Fela pulled Femi out of the group.
Next, Somoye journeyed to the United States of America where he attended California State University, Dominguez Hills and graduated with a bachelors of science in Business Administration with emphasis in Marketing and International Business 1986.
With an enduring passion for music, he went behind the scene and started music marketing and promotion. This went on for a while. In 1989, he took a mighty step to own a night club in LA called Club Flex. The club was open on Tuesdays. Every other club was open weekends.
It was a strategic move. Somoye calculated that since records were released on Tuesdays., record release parties would naturally be held at Club Flex. Many did not think it was going to be successful. He was able to approach every record company and they obliged him their records. It wasn’t long before word out that if you wanted to hear and dance to hot and fresh sounds, Club Flex was the place.
It turned out that Somoye was spot on with his calculation. “Every Tuesday if you are looking for a place to go, Club Flex was open performance. Any record company in the US that had an artiste that was coming out and had to book a tour for them to come to California, my club was the place to be.
I did not even have to do too much. Record labels were calling me to try and get their artistes to come and showcase at my club.”
Having done so well, as a good actor, Somoye knew when to quit the stage, while the ovation was loudest. Club Flex was his nocturnal business 12 years. He thought the club burnt out and decided to move on to other things. What further helped his reputation was that many of the upstarts that showcased at Club Flex went on to become big in the industry.
The new challenge for him is to help launch new acts and to show them the way to get their products on the international stage without labouring too much. Somoye’s work with legendary figures in the entertainment industry recommends him. He has had a working relationship with everybody from Snoop, Buju Banton, Shabba Ranks, Tupac, Wyclef, Anthony, Dre, Druhill and Shaggy. Anyone who is somebody in the music business in America is either his friend or acquaintance. For this pool of friends and colleagues, he is grateful to Hank Caldwell owner of Heartless Records who took him under his wings as Vice President. Along with Dick Griffey, owner of Solar Records that was responsible for acts like Whispers, Shalamar and Lakeside, Somoye is music business from two of the best.
Somoye has come home at a time that many Nigerian artistes are trying into the international market. “Dbanj has signed on to Kanye West in the past four years, they are yet to come up with anything. The same thing with Tuface. The American market is tough to get in. Majority of the people they are linking up with don’t know how to market them. When dancehall came (to America) we were the ones that did it as far as breaking dancehall as far as that community is concerned and look where dancehall is today. What is happening to our artistes now is that they will do shows within the Nigeria community, but is that all they want to do? They need to take somebody like me who knows how to break acts like that into that market.” As far as he is concerned, the only Nigerian musician who has been successful so far is Femi Kuti who has consistently sold out the Hollywood Bowl.
Somoye who was in Nigeria recently to establish an arm of his enterprise, Zome International still functions as entertainment consultant in Los Angeles. He is the one responsible for booking many of the international acts who come to Nigeria for one performance or another. He thinks the time is ripe for him to take more than a passing interest in helping to establish structures that will run the Nigerian music industry on best global practice. “A lot of them think recording an album and putting it out there is what it takes to be an artiste. There is more to it than that. If you notice some of them when they do interviews they don’t know how to address the camera. They don’t how to present themselves. The record companies have to know that there is a marketing side, public relations side, you have the promotions side, the image consultants, there are several things that need to be put in place. It is not just about someone taking the record and dumping it in Alaba. Many of the so-called managers have no expertise in management. You should be able to brand your artiste to the point where he becomes a brand, not just somebody who is selling records, meaning that you can get endorsements, put him on the road and have him do collaborations with acts from all over the place.”
