Music executive and Mavin Records boss, Michael “Don Jazzy” Ajereh, has opened up on how he discovered and signed Afrobeats sensation Sarah “Ayra Starr” Aderibigbe.
Don Jazzy signed the “Bloody Samaritan” hitmaker in 2020, when she was 18.
In 2022, she rose to fame with the global success of “Rush,” cementing her place as one of Afrobeats’ fastest-rising stars.
Speaking in the second episode of the “Exho Podcast,” which was uploaded to YouTube on Friday, the 42-year-old producer said he first came across Ayra Starr’s talent on social media.
This, the Delta-born, said convinced him to bring her into the Mavin Records fold.
He said, “For somebody like Ayra Starr, there was a space for a teenage Afrobeats superstar from Nigeria that we (Marvin Records) want to make sure becomes global. So it was pretty much very intentional. The minute I saw her, I was like, this is it. She posted on Instagram, and I saw it. I contacted one of these young Gen Z ladies I follow on the internet.
“Everybody says that I like to follow people, but I reached out to one of them anyway. I said, Hello, I might be unable to come to your schools and things like that to find some of your talents. In your school or in your circle of friends, don’t you have people who can sing? She said that in her school, some people can sing. She sent a couple of Instagram pages of some people. I looked at them.”
Don Jazzy recalled that after the lady first sent him a batch of Instagram reels featuring aspiring singers, she later forwarded a freestyle video of Ayra Starr.
He added that the moment he watched the clip, his instincts told him she was the one.
“I said, okay, fine. They’re not bad. I’ll watch them to see how they will move on social media. Luckily for me, one of those days, she saw a video where Ayra Starr was freestyling and sent it to me. I didn’t respond to her before I approached Ayra Starr. Because that’s the sort of video, the context, what she was talking about in the video. I was like, this girl looks young.
“I was like, we don’t have any Afrobeats song about this Gen Z experience. So I went to her and I entered her DM. I said, Hello, how are you? Whatever. She didn’t answer me first. I saw a post that she posted with her brother as well. I sent a message to her brother as well. She responded after a couple of hours, and we took it from there.”
The music producer advised young artistes to prioritise self-promotion on social media.
He noted that record label executives no longer have the time to attend live shows as they did in previous years.