“Lynx almost dropped me,” says KiDi

Award-winning AfroPop artiste, KiDi, in an interview on the Talk No Dey Cook Rice podcast, said Lynx Entertainment almost dropped him shortly after signing him in 2015.

He admitted being stubborn, insisting on doing things his way, influenced by years of praise as an R&B singer from his high school through to university days.

KiDi said Lynx initially wanted him to explore a different sound, which clashed with his self-image as an R&B artiste. “It was frustrating for them,” he recalled, explaining that the label recognised his talent but believed he could achieve more by being flexible and adding to his existing strength.

“Lynx almost dropped me when they signed me, almost. There was this energy, when I came into Lynx I was very stubborn; I wanted to do what I wanted to do. Imagine in 2015 where I got signed, but before then 2009 from high school through to university till after university, I have performed in a lot of underground places and I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about how much of an amazing R&B singer I am.

“And then I go and sign on to Lynx and then it looks like Lynx wants to make me sing something different and I was like no, on my way to here people have told me how much of a great R&B singer musician I am. This is what I want to, and it was getting frustrating for the at some point because, yes, you have the strength and we do recognise it that is why you’re working with us. But there’s more you can do if you add up to that strength and tweak a few things here and there,” he said.

KiDi said after winning Hitmaker, a year without success made him feel like another failed statistic. He had to unlearn and relearn everything to grow.

He admitted to learning how to produce from music from Richie Mensah, spending long hours in the studio making mistakes, improving daily until he created “Say You Love Me,” which changed everything.

“I was like God, how do I….because it didn’t just come, I didn’t just begin and start making hits. There was a one year gap…. it was looking like I was going to be another statistic, another guy who had just won a competition and nothing is about to happen because I had do a lot of rewiring of my brain. I just had to let go off a lot of things that I thought I knew, and accept new information, I learnt how to produce then.

“Richie Mensah thought me how to produce, and I’d spend…like I said I used to run away from work before 5PM, national service, and I’d spend hours in the studio trying to come up with something. I’d just be in front of the PC trying to produce, trying to learn what I was thought, trying to rehearse and practice. And I’ll make a lot of trash. I used to make a lot of trash, I’ll make some songs…chale I’ve made some song and I’m excited to play it for somebody, then I’ll play it and they’re still on their phone they’re not listening to what I’m playing.

“Then I’ll go back home and come back the next to try again, if it doesn’t work I’ll go back home and try again. I tried over and over again until I produced ‘Say you love me’ and then Albert came into the studio, heard the song then he looked at me and said ‘finally, this is the one.’ And when he said that, that kind of sent some waves into my brain of what was expected of me. From that point I started building on that,” he added.

Reflecting on a turning point in his music journey, KiDi shared a powerful piece of advice that reshaped his mindset and approach to his craft.

“I remember something which he said to me, ‘do you want to keep making music for the five hundred fans or do you want to make music for five hundred million? And that really put a lot of perspective with what I was doing,” he stated.