We have all been here before in the music industry, where an artiste with so much potential pops up in our collective consciousness, delivers songs we can’t just help but put on constant replay, and when we get spellbound anticipating for how huge they will turn out – boom! – they disappear from the scene. All that then becomes of them are memories of a one hit wonder that now dominates the news with controversies, but I’m taking a bet that this here is one dude that will prove us wrong. With an established record label like Chocolate City behind him, I hope he attains the level of success we wish for him.
For over two months, his manager had been on my trail to get me to do a story on him, so persistent that I knew not granting him a piece will not make me sleep well at night. As God would have it, I ran into Dice at Hit fm in Calabar during a radio tour. This dude knows no chill. He’s everywhere trying to pull his way through. That was the moment for me; I decided to have this interview with Dice Ailes. The Nigerian/Ghanaian Rap/Afro Pop artiste had a lot to say:

In the last 24 months, tell us about everything you have done musically?

2 years ago, I signed with Chocolate City and released my first single called Fantasy. Months after that, I followed up with Telephone which was the start of an interesting phase in my career. Nigerians started to notice my music and me. This influenced me moving back to Lagos from Toronto to further pursue my music career in 2015. Following my arrival in Lagos, Chocolate City as a collective released TICBN album on which I appeared on two tracks; Oh No and Drank. In the same year I released Machinery, my 3rd official single under the imprint of the label and this single gained the most traction of all my releases at the time. In the same year, I got an African entertainment award for best Male Artiste for the song Telephone. I also got an award for The most fashionable fast rising music star of the year at the 2015 ‘Lagos Fashion Awards’. In the early months of 2016, Reekado Banks released a cover of Machinery. This stirred up a lot of buzz. Following that I released quite a number of collaborations. Some of which were Fantasy remix ft Iyanya, Controlla Refix ft Mi Abaga, Kiss & Tell which I featured on alongside L.A.X, & LK Kuddy etc.
My latest release however is Miracle ft Lil Kesh. It dropped on the 20th of September and it’s done amazingly well. I also made an appearance on Ice Prince’s new album JT2W. And that’s a summary of my last 24 months.

In a choked up Nigerian music industry, what are your plans to stand out?

Well the industry is filled with many talented individuals. My plans to stand out are to work the hardest. An old saying goes ‘Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard’.

What are your highs and lows so far in the industry?

There have been a lot of highs and lows since I joined the industry. Performing at Gidi Fest last year was a beautiful moment for me. It was the first time I performed and the crowd sang along to my record. There have been down moments as well but I don’t keep them in my memory, I try to dwell majorly on the moments that give me happiness.

Music and schooling, how have you survived attending to both at the same time?

It’s been quite difficult juggling my studies and music, as they both require the same amount of devotion and focus. Overtime, I came to the conclusion to put one of them on pause for the other to flourish so I took a year off school. I intend going back to finish as soon as possible.

When do we expect a full body of work from you?

I have a lot of music in my archive ready to go out. Hopefully in 2017, I will be putting out a body of work.

On a lighter note, you and Lil Kesh bear the same a.k.a, who was the first to start using the name?

Well, I started to use the name Mr. Miyagi as an AKA while I was still in Canada and as at then I wasn’t aware of any other person going by that alias in the Nigerian music scene.
However, Mr. Miyagi & Mr. MeYAGI have dropped a ‘Miracle’ that should be everyone’s favorite jam now and that’s all that matters