Mavin Records singer and songwriter, John Ighodaro, better known as Johnny Drille, has revealed that he failed his first West African Examination Council, National Examination Council, and Joint Admission Matriculation Board examinations of the same year because he was trying to do music.

In an interview with the Nation, the 28-year-old opened up about his journey into the music industry, education, his family’s acceptance and how he got signed to Don Jazzy’s imprint, Mavin Records.

Drille also revealed that a female fan once traced him to his hotel room without an invitation.

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Read the excerpt:

How did you start your music?

Like everyone else, I started in church. My parents are pastors, so at an early age, I was exposed to music. First, it was with the children choir. I started to play the keyboard around 2001. I think I was like 11 years then. I learnt to play it to intermediate choir. I first joined a group called’ Soul Awakening Singers’ with my sister and some couple of other people and from there, I started to learn music production in 2006.

Because of music production, I failed my first WAEC, NECO and JAMB same year because I was trying to do the whole music thing. The following year, I tried harder and got admission into the University of Benin to study English and Literature but I didn’t really push music in school because there was really not that much time but I kept doing music production on the side and I finished in 2012 and went for MTN Project Fame and that’s when I started music professionally. I didn’t win Project Fame. I was like top 12 but the platform itself had already exposed me to how the industry works; the whole pressure and how you needed to perform constantly and create impression.

It’s been 2 years with Mavin, how has the journey been?

It’s been awesome. It wasn’t a smooth start you know. Some people have it the easy way, I feel everyone has different journey and everyone has different kind of grace so for me it wasn’t exactly smooth. I had to learn a lot along the way. I had to learn a lot about branding because for me at that time I had zero branding. It took me a while to figure it out because I was that everyday guy and still am that everyday guy I could just work the street but for a while I had to realize that yes you want to be that everyday guy but there’s also a brand attached to the music and you want people to be able to attach your brand to the music. It took me a while to get over it and yes things started to get better and started moving fast and I had my first concert in Lagos and it was awesome.

What inspired Wait for me?

Wait for me was inspired by a girl I met during NYSC sadly there was not enough time for whatever there was, I mean the like or the friendship to grow into something more.

The video makes people think that I lost a girl or somebody died but NYSC service came and went away very fast and before you know it I had to go back to Benin and she had to go back to Lagos and she moved on and I moved on. Such is life.

How was it putting together ‘Hallelujah’ with Simi?

It was both fun and stressful. Simi is a great person to work with. She’s a perfectionist and she takes her time to make songs.

Hallelujah took us almost a year to complete, in fact, generally it took us like two years. The first time I messaged her for us to do the song was like a year before she invited me over to the studio and we vibed and all I had was the chorus then we built the chorus and I started adding verses before you know it, we had the song. It was fun working with her.

You seem to have too many female fans, how do you feel when they mill around you?

You know what’s funny? Somehow people think that I have more female fans than male fans but to be honest yes I have a lot of female fans, they are the ones that reach out. If you look at my insights on my instagram I have 55 percent of male followers and 45 per cent of female followers.

What’s the weirdest thing a female fan has done to you?

She found my hotel room number and came. I thought it was room service and I opened and she threw herself in but I had to be polite about it and found a way to get her out, that was earlier in my career. I have been able to manage such situations now.