Whenever  the name jjc  and 419 squad is mention in the Nigeria music industry  what barely comes to our mind is the face of  abdul rasheed bello, a maverick record producer, talented director and sensational performer who  played a pivotal role in selling the Nigerian hip hop brand to the uk audience, yes jjc contribute  in giving nigerian music  a meaning ful direction  in  uk   thanks to his doggedness to follow the path of the art  at a time when  the Nigeria  music was lackluster at his best. With his  production  savvy  boasting  a  client list like uk urban/pop   act like  lemar, liberty x, and big brovas, jjc has over the years won our heart with his creative prowess  mentoring acts like dbanj,don jazzy, mp, queen who  have all become    household name in naija.poise to replicate the same towering feat jjc  has for sometime move back to   Nigeria to establish is company. In these exclusive interview done by ayodeji falade  jjc share  with us his plans for the Nigeria  music industry

Question   For  the sake of this interview  can you tell us about yourself.                                                       
 The name is abdul rasheed bello born in kano my mum is irobo orobo, my dad is from kwara state I grow up in the north, I speak hausa and Yoruba  , at the age of fourteen I moved to England where I have being till now. 

      QUESTION  you seem to have a split personality, there are many side to you, you rap, direct video, MAKE BEAT, can you  define yourself. when  I went to England I started my music, I wanted to be a producer, but I started as a dj , I started appreciating  music, I started making music, I look at myself as a person who is always constantly evolving from one talent to another talent, by nurturing those talent I found out I can actually use those talent for myself . so I had to start looking for external  people  to invest those talent I have learnt on. so people started calling me skills, all  the names  that I have people  gave them to me ,that kind of explain the split personality I  have , for instance  I am abdul  rasheed bello ,I am who I am ,when I went to England a lot of people call me jjc, they say look at that jjc, because of how I spoke  ,the way I am, my background  ,so I took the name jjc as the artiste ,the Nigerian guy, while I was there I acquired a lot of knowledge , those  knowledge actually made me the versatile  talent you know today, people on London street started calling me skills cos I do different thing, by  doing  those thing s I just started evolving, I helped artiste, they blow up ,I help another generation they blow up and I think I would be doing that for the rest of my life..

QUESTION     which of this talent  can  you  call your comfort zone. the problem  is  I keep on developing my self everyday,  one day I would learn one thing in after effect  and I  would be like am the best after effect editor and I  would write a song and I would be like I really love the way I wrote the song   and am the best in writing songs, even though   I feel am the best in writing songs does not mean the world agree with me, I just let the people that believe me  in choose for me, and  I hope they appreciate everything    I do.

QUESTION   WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO COME TO NIGERIA AT THIS POINT  I have being in the England for some years now, i think is the right time I move back home and start investing, I have had fun with my life, now is the  time to start investing so that when  I become an old man I would say this is my legacies, I cant build my legacies in England, since the beginning  of my career I have always kept up with  Nigeria music scene , this is time I need to  do all I can do to  consolidate my business, so that I can build a legacies that can last for generations and to help new generations yet to come.

QUESTION  THERE WAS A POINT IN YOUR CAREER THAT  A LOT PEOPLE WHERE   EXPECTING  YOU TO COME BACK  HOME BECAUSE OF THE MASSIVE ACCEPTANCE THAT GREETED YOUR   SONGS,  WHAT MADE YOU TO STAY BACK IN  ENGLAND. when I was doing big brovas back in the days, that was really big,  a lot of people where telling us to come home but my job has not finish yet, I haven’t gain all the knowledge, at that time I could produce but I wasn’t a brilliant song writer, I didn’t understand the market,  I kept  on doing it and  found out that I cant really shoot really good videos, at that  time I was working on dbanj  ,donjazzy , jjjc and 419 squad  and queen, but if  you look at the video that we did they where  not competitive enough  so that angle was needed  to be enhance so that a  strong company can be built, that was something I embarked on. I ha d to wait and expand my knowledge, I  also had to find new people to  benefit with that knowledge, so now I can come home and relax because I can achieve that legacies I want to build. 

QUESTION  6 WHERE YOU THE ONE PROVIDING THE CAPITAL FOR THE RUNNING OF T HE BUSINESS. since I started my career  I am thankful to god that god has bless me with the ability to work hard, so from my early days has a deejay I was making money and the money I made I re invest, I have always bankroll my own business. Along the way people that  where business invested
,   g ave me sponsor ship

QUESTION 7 WHERE YOU EVER SIGN TO  ANY  INTERNATIONAL LABEL. in my early days I was sign to sony, have being sign to emi,have had  a lot of deals  in the uk, in Nigeria I have being an independent label with names like backbone music, before then I was big brovas, now we have big boys record, we have business partners, we are going to have an office, we  still have one office in London, the London office is working perfectly and is a machine on its own  and am here to set up the naija branch, which I can say am controlling, and we are going to have a branch in Abuja which is going to be run by one of  our members, so is not just about me coming home, big boys is coming home, is  a whole infrastructure, we have to evolve to a point where we would build a proper  legacies.  

QUESTION 8   ARE YOU SAYING THE COMPANY IS NOT SOLEY OWN BY YOU yes  is own by collective board  of directors, people can actually buy shares from  the company, is a business, is something I think WE can use to change the face of the African music .

DO THINK YOUR  IDEAS  CAN WORK IN  THE NIGERIA  INDUTRY  THAT STILL REMAIN DISORGAINSE,  AN INDUTRY  THAT IS BESET BY VICES LIKE PIRACY AMONG OTHER VICES ,if it  is not organize then someone need to organize it, I believe that Nigerians have the biggest  opportunities ,if you have the money let everyone enjoy  it, if you have the money at your disposal  then you should  help others .Most time when you are trying to make money you have deadline to meet and you don’t have e  enough money , it doesn’t mean you don’t want to help the person, the truth is, it’s a give and take, but if you hold back then you cant receive, so  if we all work together we all make more money, the whole world is looking at Nigeria, they are looking at Africa more importantly Nigeria because of our population, we are envied, we can make it work internationally.

QUESTION     DO  YOU BUY THE IDEA  OF SPENDING HUGE MONEY  on INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION come on don’t you see when  rick ross came to Nigeria, what was he looking for in Nigeria,  is  he not well known in America but he wants to be known internationally , he wants to be known in Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Japan  so as a Nigerian  we want to make an impact in the international  market, why shouldn’t durellar or too short be known in America, so we can break into the international market and make Nigeria music  have impact like reggae tone, then we would   have achieve a lot for our culture, language and country. international collaboration is the first step in  expanding into other   territories  and we all need to evolved so  I definitely   support it, it is not cheap but if you  can get someone to bankroll it  for you please go ahead and do it because it helps the market, even American artiste love to break into African market. there is guy in angolar   who  did the song  windeck, the guy track blew up in Africa and now fatjoe is on it. so you can see, if you have something the masses love they would look for you, it’s  a two way thing , they want to get into Africa just like we want to get into America  and England.

 HOW COME YOU Haven’t DONE ANY INTERNATIONAL  COLABORATION LIKE THE BOY YOU MENTORED TALKING ABOUT DBANJ everybody has a level ,at the time I was doing big brovas our game was not evolved enough to have international collaboration, at that time nobody believe much in Nigerian music, I was one of the few Nigerians  that was screaming Nigeria is the best land, when everybody where  saying  they where Jamaican in England. so there was no way I could get a collaboration with someone in the famous world, I was instrumental  like  many  other people in making that Nigerian brand nice, make it possible, make it international brand you want to be part o f . like many other artiste I  worked hard to make that happen, so now we have done it, now that I have come back into music definitely expect an international  collaboration with an international artiste when I found one that sooth my style

 QUESTI HOW CORDIAL IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH  DBANJ AND DONJAZZY what I would say is me and the mohit don’t have problem at all, they  came as part of  the development of African music and they themselves have evolved  to be where they are today doing a collaboration with snoop and many other artiste ,anybody  in the game that has being able to evolved  the game am cool with such person, I believe in the next generation, for them  to make it international is  a dream for all of us, am hearing  wiz kid is working with some international acts, good for us

QUESTION HOW COME YOU DON’T HANG OUT WITH THEM . they  are busy, that is  the whole point you know, they are taking the bulls by the horn , they are  going for it, they are madly busy, if I  have the opportunity they  have right now I would be madly busy. So if we cant hang out now is all good .i saw  them once actually, we hanged  out together  in London so we are cool.

QUESTION  did  you actually train the dbanj  generation how too sing and produce. What I did was mentored them for instance., Right now I have a whole new set OF generation we call the big boys all stars, I mentor them and guide them on how to go about their songs, what am trying to say is I  WONT  work with an artiste if the artiste is not talented, what I do is polish that talent to make them t into something  extraordinary ,  for  instance the person that refine      a diamond didn’t create the diamond god created the diamond so am more  like the person that  wash the diamond, polish it nicely , so what I did was give them that push and exposure .

QUESTION  WHAT ARE  YOUR FUTURE  PLANS I pray for long life and good health, for inspiration to keep on coming, the initial plan is  to set up, the long time plan is to create  an  engine that would help the artiste that are sign to my label but more importantly to create a service to the next generation and not just service where we help you create song, shoot video but  more importantly on how to use instrument  themselves ,  so  that  those certain tricks that  people like  don jazzy would know  would be  available for the masses , that is what I want to do,  anybody that  knows me would knows  that information flow freely in my circle, our culture as thought us no to teach each other anything but in England everybody teach everybody everything  so am back to teach  anybody whatever  we ought to  have known , I hope  if I start  a lot of people would follow and this would impact a lot of generations.

 QUESTION WEHEN ARE YOU DROPPING YOUR NEW ALBUM.  I should  be dropping my  album before  December if  everything  work  out has planed. Coming to Nigeria I thought  I would be able to drop our album but I can just drop the album just like that, at least I have to let people know we are here by  setting up an office, so that everybody knows where they can go too, so we can welcome everybody to knock.
 QUESTION   what do you have to say  to the Nigerians  that would be reading  this piece .we all have  to be involved  in the process   of making Nigeria great, American  has a  lot of negative things but they don’t show it, they show us Hollywood, so that we all want to go America, I  have lived in England, I have seen the shanty  places  we don’t see on the TV so we should not be showing our negative side to the world, the government are to manage us and we too should get involved in the process  cos we are responsible for our own problem for as they are managing us we too should be managing them, we should tell them what we need from them and they  must give it to us so that we can be productive, maybe am just a novice a jjc but in London we hold them accountable  for what ever  they do, we go  as far as organizing irallies when they don’t perform, I  have being actively involved  in developing  the face of African youth, have being  opportune to  do  a festival for the mayor  of London and the reason for doing this is to redeem the image of Nigeria   as a people who perpetrated  419 activities, that was the reason we formed the 419 squad , it was the group that actually took away the stigma associated with the figure, as we turn it into music so  when people see  us they reason  they just  are Nigerian group that do music .it blend the two into one, its not something that is a stigma anymore, so we must all contribute our quota  to he development of this country .