God did not answer my prayer on time –Azeezat

Azeezat is a respected female music artist. She is regarded as one of those who paved the way for female contemporary singers to thrive. She told us how music began for her.
How did you discover your music talent?
I didn’t discover music. I started by writing songs. As a matter of fact, by the time I was 13, I was already a published writer. I wrote poems and songs and got published by Lagos Horizon. After then, I had cousins coming around, and we were trying to entertain ourselves and we started singing popular songs, then I think it was a Pepsi, 7-Up or Coca-Cola advert, and every time I sang it, my cousins were like ‘she’s the winner.’ That was how, gradually, the knowledge of my talent came to me.
How was your journey to music success?
The journey between when I discovered my talent and Nigeria discovered me was a very long one. Then, I was in secondary school and I stared doing small, small literary and debating performances. In higher institution, I joined a group, West Coast Family, and we did a lot of campus and club shows until we broke up after which there was a kind of a long break.
During that long break, I did a lot of research and grooming for myself by rescoring international songs and trying to fit my voice into what I was hearing. A lot of people also gave me advice that I followed. That was in Abeokuta. Eventually, I told myself, if you have to do this thing, you have to do it with God.
So I went into fasting and praying, and God did not answer my prayer until like two or three years after I came to Lagos. By chance, they told me Ayo Animashaun was organising something. My neighbour was his client and Ayo came to his house and he told Ayo I was the girl he had been telling him about.
So that’s how I got involved with Girls Nite Out which I did not win. I cried like a baby, but I met my manager and the professional journey started in earnest.
You have had a lot of performances. Which is your greatest so far?
I have had a lot of great ones.
Which of them is the greatest? Do you have any like that, as some will tell you that it is when they performed for the President or when they performed for 140,000 people at Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil?
OK, like I said, I have had a lot of great performances, but I think I remember when I opened for Femi Kuti at the firstever MTN Y’ellofest. But to me, the performance that is really embedded in my heart is the one that I had at Goethe Institute and the late Ambassador Olusola blessed me. I have it on tape and every time I look at it, I feel like ‘yeah.’
Coming into the industry many years ago, what did you actually want to achieve?
Greatness. Greatness has classes, forms and levels, but greatness.
Which level of greatness? All the way or to a certain extent?
Even the people that want to go halfway will not tell you that they want to go halfway. Some people will tell you that I want to go all the way, and of course, by the time your belly starts singing from hunger, you will settle for less. But I think I have paid enough dues to go all the way.
What is your take on why female artists find it difficult to be successful here, unlike in Europe and America?
Well, honestly, even in America and Europe, if you calculate the percentage of female artists compared to their male counterparts, you will know that males are also more there. I am a die-hard fan of Naija, and I don’t like it when people bring Naija down, comparing it to US, UK and saying one thing, one thing, nahhh.
As it happens here, it happens there. It is just that the scale could be higher. Number one, I wouldn’t say females don’t have a voice, compared to then. We have a voice now, strong voices that are heard. We are being heard. It could be better, because some girls allow us to be labelled as wack. I am not being judgemental, but such girls don’t do their homework well before coming out.