Asa Asika: How I became a talent manager

Asa Asika, the renowned music industry figure and talent manager, has opened up about his journey into the entertainment industry.

In a recent interview, Asika, who is the manager of megastar Davido, talked about his early days — from DJing to organising some of the biggest parties and concerts in Nigeria.

The co-founder of The Plug also spoke about his family ties with Obi Asika, the music executive, and how his uncle contributed to his career.

“I never had any interest in entertainment. I ended up working in entertainment… there used to be these guys who used to make music. One day, they walked up to me and said we are meeting with your uncle. I did not know the details then, but I knew my uncle works in the entertainment. I got home and told my dad  some group of guys want to meet my uncle. That was the beginning of how I found out what he does,” he said.

“Off of that, I started hanging out with Uncle Obi a bit. Paying attention to what is happening in music. I discovered my uncle had access to celebrities then. And the gain we had then was that when we have school parties, we get to have celebrities come around.

“… I started doing club nights and I started growing. The first event was a party at The Vault back in the day at Mega Plaza. A lot of people came for me to help them with song orientation. Banky was like the first to hire me to do this thing. Banky paid me a N100,000 then for ‘Lagos Party’. We did a club tour.”

Asika revealed that at some point he took a break from managing Davido to focus on budding artistes.

“Nothing changed. Because now I already made up my mind that I wanted to work in the entertainment space and I enjoyed talent management,” he added.

“It is just a thing of working with other people. So for example, during that period, that is when I opened my own company properly. Stargaze is a business company I merged with The Plug.

‘TOBI AMUSAN IS ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE CLIENTS’

“Sometimes I look at our clients and wonder how we got them on board. For example, I remember where I was when we had our first conversation with Tobi. I remember who I was with. And I was like how did we get this babe to trust us? Tobi is one of the favourite clients that I have.

‘I GOT MY FIRST N1M FROM BOOKING OF A SHOW IN 2006’

“I cannot remember what I spent my first one million on. I got my first one million naira doing bookings for a show. And at that point in time, I do not think I had opened a bank account. So I had the N1m sent to my dad’s account. This was around 2006 or 2007. My dad knew I was a hustler. But I guess the figure at that point in time was very loud. I think I booked like five artistes.

“I think I had my dad give me some of the cash. It was just on nonsense. Buy credits for babes. Just random stuff. I cannot boast of one good thing I did with that money.

‘HOW WE USED N100K TO PROMOTE DAVIDO’S HIT TRACK ‘DAMI DURO’

“People say this all the time. They always try to make a facade around it like when David came out we had it easy. And I am like ‘Back When’ for example, we had Davido shot. We had Naeto C on the song. That was it. I learnt all other things on the job. I remember going to Cool FM and speaking to certain OAPs. I was always disturbing the DJs by playing ‘Back When’.

“I always tell people, the promo budget for ‘Dami Duro’ was N100k. And one person collected that N100k from me. The person knows himself very well. N100k to one person and that was it.”