Rotimi is a busy man.
The Nigerian-American has a successful career as an actor and is best known for roles in US TV dramas Boss and Power.
But he’s also a musician with a string of hits under his belt, and it’s music that is his first love – not including his lady, that is….
His latest release is a catchy Afrobeats number called Sade featuring fellow Nigerian Mayorkun and South African rapper Nasty C.
“Me, I’m proper African American and so I wanted to bring the Afrobeats vibes, the R’n’B vibes, the Amapiano vibe all in one record, it was just me, who I am. These guys just helped complement it beautifully,” he said.
Rotimi says it was when he finally became at ease with his mixed identity that he became able to make great music.
“I’m half Igbo, half Yoruba, and also being light skinned it was tough growing up, even coming back [to Nigeria] because they called me white man.
“It was always about proving [myself], until I said I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am who I am. Once I lived in that space, that’s where the records came, that’s where the In My Bed came, that’s where Love Riddim came, and all these big records.”
The acting came about as a way of funding the music. Rotimi’s manager noticed he was natural on camera during video shoots and suggested he put himself forward.
“I got thrown into acting, a broke, hungry kid who just happened to be gifted in something he didn’t know he was gifted in. Power and all these things wasn’t my goal, it was always music, it’s always been music,” he said.
Luckily, being the only child of ambitious parents has given Rotimi the drive and experience to do multiple things at once.
He’s had to work superfast in studio because of the time demands that come with being in a long-running TV show:
“I would go to set and they’d be like ‘your call time is 6am’, and I’d be finished at 11pm at night, and the label’s like ‘listen bro’ you have two hours to give us something’. In those two hours I would make a hit like In My Bed, records that happen to be platinum records now.”
Rotimi now has to fit his partner, Tanzanian singer songwriter Vanessa Mdee, and their two small children into his schedule. The couple met when they were performing at Essence festival and it was love at first sight.
“It was like a movie, the lights get dim, and she’s sitting on a pool table, she kind of looks at me and it’s like oh, what is going on!”
Rotimi knew he was smitten when he found himself juggling the eight-hour time difference with East Africa and hanging on the phone late into the night.
“‘No, you put the phone down! No, you put the phone down, you hang up’, I’m doing all that stuff… What the hell? I’m a player baby, I don’t do all this, I’m a sex symbol!”
Rotimi and Vanessa Mdee very deliberately share their lives on social media because they are conscious of the need for role models.
“We both know there’s not a lot of examples of black strong love and being able to be in the industry like this and have a family and represent these things. We feel like it’s a responsibility for us to show that it can be done – and still be fly and still be cool, and still be sex symbols, baby!”
Rotimi’s sense of responsibility extends to his music career,
“I’m able to tour the Caribbean and I have a concert in Amsterdam, and doing an Australia tour and have one of the biggest records in Nigeria, so like to represent Africa around the world is the goal.”
He adds: “The challenge now that you have a little leverage is to know how to say no, and to not sacrifice your morals, knowing how to discipline self, knowing how to block out negativity from people. Getting up every day and trying to better and better and better.” (BBC News)
