Adewale Moyowa Emmanuel, popularly known as Mayorkun, is a famed Nigerian singer and songwriter. He worked in banking for two years after earning an accounting degree from the University of Lagos. Now, as he continues pursuing his music career, he spoke to AfroVibes how is all started and shared his advice for upcoming musicians.

“I was just doing it.” Mayorkun said. “This shirt-and-tie kind of job, all of these 9-5 things, I don’t like it. I really wanted to make music but my mom said I should keep working in the bank to make money. To push myself.”

Before his accounting career, Mayorkun grew up singing in church. As a child, he was exposed to music by his mother, Toyin Adewale-Gabriel, a famous actress and poet, and father, Sunday Adewale, an artist and movie producer. Even his uncle is a veteran juju musician.

Advised by his parents, Mayorkun continued crunching numbers at work but he used his banking job to fund his passion for music. He recorded demos and produced music covers then on Mayorkun posted one of his covers on Twitter - a 14-second video of himself covering the song, “The Money,” by Davido. He also tagged Davido in the post in hopes to get the famous Nigerian artist's attention.

At the time, Mayorkun was looking for a new job and had written his resignation letter for the bank job, then on the same day he received a social media message from Davido.

Davido saw Mayorkun's Twitter post that had since gone viral, was impressed by his piano skills, and was interested in signing him to his record label.

”I wanted to delete it so bad,” Mayorkun said about the video he posted to Twitter. “I didn’t have space to receive messages and I couldn’t take pictures but I just knew. I just kept it."

That decision changed Mayorkun's life forever. Now known as the "Mayor of Lagos," he signed to Davido’s DMW label and his first single, “Eleko,” reached over 1 million YouTube views in less than 10 days.

Mayorkun quickly went from being an accountant to a musician seemingly over night. When asked if he was initially nervous about it all, especially considering how things seemed to have happened so serendipitously he said, “The fact that it was Davido, I just believed. There is a way the universe works for someone it wants to work for at that time and everything just happened at once because it was my time.”

Since then, Mayorkun has won several awards for music performances dating back to 2016 including the Most Promising Act from City People’s Awards and Next Rated from the Headies. Some of his popular songs include Mama, Fantasy, Che Che, and Up To Something. While is latest release gaining traction is Geng, at 25-years-old, it is clear Mayorkun is not one to peak early in his career then fade away.

The time Mayorkun spent recording, practicing, and studying music since he was young is what led to to his first nationwide tour where he performed in six different cities with Davido. For his fans and other aspiring musicians currently working at 9-to-5 job, Mayorkun said, “Keep doing what you're doing. When it’s time, you will be shocked by the way everything is going to pan out.”

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