The Truth About The Life Of OJB Jezreel ‘Jiggaman’
Babatunde Okungbowa a.k.a OJB
Jezreel was born on July 4th, 1966 in Lagos to Chief Anthony Okungbowa
& Isabella Abiodun Okungbowa (Nee Pinheiro) in a matrimony that
produced 5 others. He was the last child of his mum.
He attended Yewande
Memorial Primary School & Mainland Preparatory Elementary School between
1972 - 1977.
He graduated from
Federal Government College, Ijanikin in 1986 where he organized a music concert
while he was a student of the school.
He furthered his
education at Lagos College of Education and Liter-way College, Holland, Year
1987-1990. However, in true pursuit of his passion and a real career, he
decided to follow his path in life as an artiste/music producer.
For the prolific producer,
music started back in 1986. The artiste started making beats in back room
studios, first in his Surulere neighbourhood and later in
other parts of the city.
OJB Jezreel was a
seasoned producer and a great musician. Over the years, he has produced some of
the greatest hit albums and singles in the history of R&B hip-hop music in
the entertainment scene in Africa.
He worked with 2face
Idibia which is the greatest thing that came out of Africa to the world. OJB
Jezreel single handedly produced 'Face 2 Face', the album that contained tracks
like African Queen that took 2face to another level.
He has worked with
Bennie Man, a Jamaican American based musician.
He produced artistes
like RuggedMan re-establishing rap music to gain its ground in Nigeria. He also
produced Jazzman Olofin, Weird MC, Paul Ik Dairo, Daddy Showkey, Sir Shina
Peters, Olu Maintain.
OJB also produced
albums and songs for Faze, Iyanya , D'banj, Durella, Wizkid, Yemi Alade etc to
mention a few.
He made so much impact
in the music industry thereby making Nigeria the cradle of entertainment in
Africa also emerging a spotlight in Africa, he remains the greatest producer
ever to emerge from the continent Africa.
As a musician he is
one of the greatest vocalists and by virtue of years of experience as a
producer he has been able to impact his gathered knowledge into his style of
music thereby making him Mr. versatile in his last album ‘No Drama’ with great
hit songs like ‘Searching’ and ‘Pretete’ which created so much impact that it
sold close to one million copies in less than 4 weeks without the push and
promotion of a record label. If you call OJB Mr. versatile, he is.
The respected music
producer and singer battled with Kidney problems since 2013. He was
consequently flown to India for a transplant in 2013.
With his kidney
experience, he decided to set up a Foundation, ‘OJB Foundation’ to help people
with kidney problems in appreciation to God for saving his life.
However, his kidney
transplant failed again a week before his demise and OJB passed on.
He is survived by his
wives, Mabel Babatunde Okungbowa, June Okungbowa, and Korede Okungbowa with
eight children.
Signed
Iliyas Abimbola Ahmed
Management
31 Nation
No comments