Evergreen Music CEO, BIMBO ESHO
Written by Wale Lawal.
She is a familiar name within the entertainment sector. In the last couple of years, the name Bimbo Esho has been ringing louder than it has ever done. And it is not on accounty of her pretty face or bold and curvy figure that she is getting popular, it is because of her telling contributions to the growth and sustenance of Nigerian music. Evergreen Musical Company, the organisation she represents, is the largest custodian of all genres of Nigerian music. Bimbo has done incredibly well after taking leadership of the company from her father who has since retired and taken a backseat from the running of the company.
Without a doubt, it couldn’t have been easy stepping into the massive shoes of her father, the Iconic Babafemi Esho who earned the love and respect of all music practitioners in the land owing to his love for music and a genuine commitment to preserve and sustain the creative works of the Nigerian artiste. His desire is to see that even the generations yet unborn will be able to have access to our musical trajectory. And Bimbo, young, dynamic creative and one whose passion for music has shone through since her childhood days, has proven that she is not only her father’s child, but one who is also here to make her mark and leave her foot prints on the sands of time.
Two Sundays ago, the very gorgeous Bimbo Esho was honoured by City People at the recently held Female Achievers Award for her remarkable contributions to the music industry. Like the true daughter of her father that she is, Bimbo dedicated the award to her father. The very calm and brilliant lady spoke with City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) and shared with us her journey into the music industry. Enjoy excerpts of the interview.
How do you feel with this recognition given to you by City People?
I can’t even thank Uncle Seye enough for this. He has been so supportive. We’ve come a long way together. Even before coming into the limelight he has always been advising me and encouraging me, so coming this far actually means so much to me. It’s coming at the right time and I appreciate it.
I have always been curious as to how you were able to come into the business and seamlessly sustained your dad’s legacies. You are a brilliant woman, you’re well read, you could’ve chosen something else but you chose to come into the busness to support your dad’s business aspirations, why?
I think it’s more of passion and nothing more. One cannot explain the motive really, but it’s more of pasasion borne out of watching my dad doing most of these things when we were growing up and also understanding the need to keep our heritage for the future that’s coming, understanding that we’re also occupying a very sensitive role in the country as collectors of music of yester years. A lot of people will tell us that we are the only people doing this anywhere in the world, I knew that to be able to save this legacy, one has to just take the bull by the horn. Understanding also that a time will come when baba might be old and would need somebody to step into his shoes, so I just got encouraged by all of these.
But certainly you also must’ve fallen in love with music at some point yourself, whether its local or foreign music
Oh, yes, you can say I have an addiction for good music. I don’t have any particular genre of music that I like, so long as it has good ;lyrics, good messages that I can learn a lot from, I am okay with it. And because I am addicted to music, it made it so easy for me to fit into the whole scenario very well.
Are you the only one of your dad’s children that has thrown everything into this like you’re doing?
Well, all I will just say is that we are all very creative in our different chosen careers. Some of my siblings are into fashion, some are into printing, so we all are doing creative work. And the truth is we all learnt these things from my father, so I guess I chose the line iof music while the others chose fashion, printing and the rest. My dad was into printing and he was also a fashionista as well. So, we all made our choices from our different areas of interest.
How has it been for you stepping into father’s shoes since you took over the running of the company? How have you been able to carry the organisation on your shoulders and meet the expectations of people?
Because I started very young, and I’ve been able to study the whole process, so coming into it was just seamless. It was so easy. Most of the people that he knows, I know today. And I also have my own clientele. So, bringing everybody together under same umbrella has been so interesting. And I understand the terrain very well because I started very young. Running the business has been wonderful because you meet a lot of people, you can feel what music is doing for different kinds of people, maybe in the Academic, the corporate world or even as an individual, you can see what music is doing. So, it makes everything so seamless and interesting.
What has been the most challenging part of it all for you?
I always smile when people ask this question because I can boldly say we have not really had much challenges in that regard. But what I can just say is that we are right now in the process of trying to take the business to the people. So, the next stage is the challenging part for me which is taking the business to that next level where it becomes like an institution, institutionalising the music, that’s the next stage that we are right now and it’s more like the challenge that I see right now because it is the next stage and a very critical one at that.
Who were some of the artistes back then that you were really close to, that you loved their music and their personality?
I wouldn’t want to sound biased but one thing we must understand is that every artiste, every musician has their own peculiarities. Well, I would say I was close to Dr, Victor Abimbola Olaiya, maybe because he’s my name sake I wouldn’t know, but I was quite close to him when he was alive. That’s about the one person I was really close to. Another person I can say I’m close to is someone like Baba Obey who is still very much alive. I’m very close to him. And a few other ones too like Orlando Julius, Victor Uwaifo, I was close to them. They appreciated the kind of thing we were doing and we also had very good relationship with them.
I guess they also must’ve been impressed with your passion for the business and took you like a daughter..
Exactly, because they were seeing for the first time a young lady doing what I’m doing, trying to preserve their music, they hadn’t seen that before. They were like, whats happening here, this is really interesting, so they were really, really very impressed. They were much older like than me, they were old enough to be my father, so they just developed that natural likeness for me because of what I do.
Your job entails that you go out a lot, trying to honour invitations from people, from musicians, and this means you have to be in their midst a lot and of course most of them are males. Many of them will desire to be close to you, just like the regular guys too would like to be close to you. Have you found yourself in a situation where you constantly had to deal with so many male admirers than you would like to have?
Funny enough, a lot of people think I go out a lot, but the truth is I don’t. The kind of business I do is an organised kind of business. You know where you want to go, you know what you want to do and you know who you want to meet at certain point. Naturally, a lot of the men get attracted to me being that it’s the first time they will see a female doing what I’m doing and they appreciate me for that. And sometimes, when some of them are trying to go the other way round which is normal, I have my ways of handling them and won de ma gbe je (meaning they will immediately know their place)
So, it’s been like how many years now that you took over Evergreen Musical Company?
It’s been like six years. Actively six years.
In a few words, how have those six years been for you?
They’ve been fun filled. I’ve been able to meet a lot of people that ordinarily I may not have met. I’ve met top personalities from the entertainment sector, corporate sector and lots of regular people as well. I have also met people who are much lower to me in status but I’ve learnt from them as well. You get to learn from everybody.