Popular musician, Mike Okri is set to tour the United States of America (USA) with his Urhobo Harmony Band. In this interview, he talked about his career and the tour.

Tell us about your background?

I am an Urhobo by tribe from Ughelli in Delta State. I am from a humble family, pretty large as well because the Okris are everywhere. I am number three in the number of children that are numerous to mention.

At what stage in your life did you discover music as your passion?

Well, as a young kid, I was just six years when I started joining words into songs. I could sing old songs, school rhymes and do them even pretty better than a group of kids would do them. Of course, the most fascinating thing about me is my voice, my unique kind of voice.

My mum, who by the grace of God will turn 90 soon, was whom I got that talent from and it is not only me, virtually all my siblings can sing. It just happened that God brought me to the fore-front and I am believing God that right from my very young age, I have never relented. I have been singing from when I was six years old.

For a while now, you have been absent from the music industry, what happened?

That was a kind of turning point in my life where I felt I was obviously trying to reach out to something I could not grab. Just like the situation in the country with different fields where we think that maybe we are not being supported enough, I decided I was going to the United States. Unknown to me that just few years when I left, MTV Base came to Africa and turned the music industry here around for many, however, I do not have any regrets because I observed that US is the citadel of music worldwide.

Talk about technology, talk about the best of the best in the music industry globally. So, I am privileged now that I am back to believe that I am better than what I was and could do better to enhance as well as contribute my own quota to the ailing music industry.

When you produced ‘Time Na Money‘, what gave you the inspiration?

It is an inspiration that if I give myself the credit, I will be lying. I will give the credit to the likes of Remakwa Chukwu and Laolue Kings; these are formidable people in the music industry who thought it was good for me to use my voice to deliver a song in the best way it could be better understood.

Time Na Money came into prominence and it was not a disappointment to the general public. I am proud to have produced a song that reminisces into the ages, evergreen and is seen as a song of culture to many as to how to live a true life.

Compare the new generational music with the old school?

Well, I have no doubt in my mind that there is a revolution. Except that a revolution that has picked up to a level but like a boomerang, is coming down backward. When you look at the graphic accent of the key when it reaches to the pick, and due to improper design, it is coming downward.

It is sad to say that in the eyes of so many of us, both professional and non-professionals alike, yes, it is a booming industry, millions are rolling but what do we think the music industry will be 15 years down the road when the likes of the present people are no more there?

Some of us are proud to say we are evergreen and we thank the audience who identifies good music. But what is good music? A good music is one that reminds you or teaches me about something I am proud of or something that will alter my way for good rather than alter my way to do evil or bad thing.

Songs of fun, it does not mean we have to be too serious. There is variety that makes a whole lot of sense but when it is too mono in the approach of it, it becomes monotonous and turns into a cacophony which is noise.

Your fans are wondering when they are going to see your new album

I tell you strangely because I know that that has been the expectations for quite some time now. I am doing my new tape with old music cult. It is like new wine in an old bottle. I am doing my old Omoge with Omawumi, that is not news except that we are still working on it to do it right.

We are also doing Rumber Dance with Sheyi Shey. I am also doing another song, a charitable song meant for charitable event and for humanity, and I featured the likes of Yinka Davies, Christiana – the Ozigizaga coroner. I also featured Benita Okoje and some of my children. It is a song I had to bring new and old together. We have such event coming back.

I am also looking at the possibility that from next year, there will be a different Mike Okri going on road tour with my own band. We want to turn things around and also use me as a platform to develop new arts. Create for them a future, call it an academy of sound on the road.

Apart from music what else do you do?

I am a businessman. I am a jack of all trade, master of all. I am involved in resource management, advisory committee on any new idea because God has blessed me in being able to share ideas. I also do research, write proposals for events for companies both home and abroad. I am also a psychologist, a counselor. I am involved in counseling.

What was your course of study at the university?

Here in Nigeria, I went to TV College, Jos, where I earned my diploma in journalism. When I went to the States, I followed a new line; music was not necessary so I did not need to pursue it because by my own standard, I was equal to none. Knowing that one of the greatest problems facing humanity is the fear of God and the inability to care for others, was what brought me into the counseling business.  But I needed to study and earn my degree and Masters in Psychology, Drug and Alcohol because it was a big problem in the United States and I aimed to pursue that by writing books.

Why do musicians engage in drugs?

Well, it is foolhardiness. Secondly, they have no clue about the dangers, thirdly, myopism. If you look at the structures of some of the artists today, you will see that some of them probably by accident hit the limelight. So they have so much money that they do not know what to do with money. You and I who are from humble homes and know what we have suffered, if we make money, we will know how to handle it with good advisers around us. But some of these boys are wayward, arrogant, and disrespectful; no man with such character can do anything good with his millions.

Is Mike Okri a Christian?

Mike Okri is a Christian. I believe strongly in that aspect of me as a Christian. We are from a Christian family even though we may not have had a Christian background but there was a turn around in my life when God touched me.

At what time?

It was at a time Mike Okri has already made name. You know how it is when you are in the music industry, challenged by the pleasures of the world and women flaunting themselves here and there. I thank God that it got to a point where I took a step backward to review my life because some of us are not around to tell their story today due to these pleasures. But you know that you cannot separate that human race from its likeness and who is its likeness? God – the creator of heaven and earth. You cannot separate them.

When we intend to follow our own will, things begin to go wrong. It is like a child, a toddler, learning how to walk; God will sit back and watch just like our earthly fathers such that when we fall he will pick you up. But it gets to a time you are wise to know that this is a pitfall, your father will not be there anymore to be able to direct you. So that is what it is.

Tell us more about the US tour?

I have decided to wet the floor of the entertainment industry with our old-time songs again before I drop a new single. We shouldn’t forget that we have new faces which have taken over the generations of our time.
This isn’t my first tour, I have been going on tour since 1990.

But the US tour is just a different thing. 2020 Mike Okri and the Urhobo Harmony Band will be having a blast music tour in the USA which will be taken place at the Radisson Blu Mall Of America from September 3rd to 7th and its an annual convention and anniversary celebration by the Urhobo Progress Union America (UPUA) and we will be back to Nigeria on October 4th – 10th in Lagos, Abuja and Delta State respectively.