Zlatan Ibile speaks on his music breakthrough, reveals how Davido, Olamide discovered him

Zlatan Ibile, a popular Nigerian hip-hop artist and rapper, has opened up about his past and the challenges he faced before breaking through in the music industry. He also discussed the vital roles that the rapper Olamide and the singer Davido played in the musical transformation of his “grass to grace” story.

Zlatan Ibile started by revealing that he used the car he won from a music competition as a taxi. Speaking in a recent chat with media personality, Samuel Eni, the Zanku crooner said he had to use the car as a taxi because he couldn’t foot his bills or maintain the car. Zlatan said after winning the car, it took him another four years to achieve career success after he was assisted by Olamide and Davido. The rapper recounted:

“I qualified among the two to go represent my school in the grand finale [of a music competition]. So, like tactically out of 140 candidates. With just two tracks, I just started rapping. I know nothing about music. I just started writing and downloading beats online. And out of 140 people, I don’t know how God did it, I won a brand-new car when I was 19 years old. My first semester in school.

“From there, I just sat down and said to myself, if I can win a brand-new car, seems God is telling me something. I took it seriously from there.

“After that, it took me another four years after I won the car. I ended up using the car as [a] taxi because I could not maintain the car or maintain the lifestyle. Before, Olamide saw me one day and hit me up on Instagram. He called me up and made a song for me, for free, [and also] came for the video shoot for free. To me, that was like my breakthrough song in 2017.

“Davido saw the song [Body], and danced to it; the video was his first one million views on Instagram. And, he called me to come to his house. He made [a] song for me. I told him I don’t have money for [the] video. He gave me money for the video. After then, I made Zanku, and since then it has been blessings upon blessings.”