We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Olalekan Ajalaagbo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Olalekan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally over 15 years ago. During high school, I would be called for various gigs (especially weddings) to play the keyboard with the local African band. Sometimes, I would have an exam, but instead of studying on the weekends, I would be gigging from Friday to Sunday night. Even though my parents were not fully in support of the “distraction” of gigging while in school, I will still find a way to get good grades. After High school, the gigs and opportunities even doubled; I would be getting calls from local musicians regarding booking me to play the piano with their band for shows. During this time, I found it hard to balance college with gigging, as these gigs would sometimes require traveling out of the state. And as college was a different ball game in terms of requirements, I couldn’t give a 100% to my studies. I began to do a lot of studying last minute, as a result of gigs, even sometimes after classes and of course during the weekends. As a result of the last minute studying and not getting proper rest, I began to slack off in some courses. I didn’t fail any course but I didn’t do as good as I should’ve. I eventually started losing interest in pursing a college degree as music began to take over. Eventually, I still graduated with my bachelors. After my undergrad, I started working as a program director for a non-profit organization, servicing the youth in the community. During this time, I would take off many days to travel for shows such as Coachella, tours and many more big shows. I would be in the office listening to music and learning music that I would be performing. During this time, because I was the program director, I was able to juggle being the music director at church (which was very demanding), performing with local acts, and also international acts, all at the same time. I would train my staff to be able to still be effective even when I wasn’t around. My executive director at that time had various meetings with me regarding calling-out so many times, but he was still understanding, as the work in the office was not lacking, despite my absence. In 2020, when the pandemic happened, that was my sign to really pursue being a musician professionally. I was already a professional musician, but with a 9-5. But this time, I decided to use all my resources and faith in God to pursue music full-time. With all the fear in the world during an uncertain time as well as the instability of the music industry at that time, I still had high hopes. And as God would have it, opportunities were flowing in non-stop. I began to think as a business-man in all aspects and began to put pieces together for my business. I had already formed a band before all of this, therefore, I made my band official, hired a manager and went through all the legal process, etc. and started booking shows. From then on, I knew I had a shot at being a professional musician to live a good life, as a result of all the work I had put in from when I came to the United States. And through the grace of God, I have been an inspiration to the younger musicians and current musicians that you can make a good living as a professional musician once you are able to put in the work. It didn’t take a day, it took years for me to work hard and eventually, the hard-work was worth it.

Olalekan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a music director, music producer, music arranger and overall music visionary. I’ve been into music (playing the piano and directing music) since high school. From then on, as a result of all the opportunities and pieces coming together, I knew I was destined to become a professional musician. I have a band, Kingsmen (business) of which I am the founder/CEO where we hire musicians for various artists (mostly international afrobeats artists) such as Wizkid, Davido, Tems, Ayra Starr, Fireboy DML, and many more artists and shows at venues such as MSG, Accor Arena, Broccoli Festival, Roots Picnic and many more.
Myself and my band (business) provide live band services as well as a musician staffing for any event requiring live music. These live band services include any type of musician at any capacity, engineers and any musician crew needed for any event/tour/festival.
As a result of the afrobeats industry lacking the industry standard sound, myself and my band (kingsmen) has come into the industry to set the live music standard, and as a result, we have worked with the top artists listed above and many more.
In addition, I arrange the artists live music, program their songs to fit into their live set so as to sound great for live performances and have the audience wanting more.
I am most proud of my resilience and hardwork to becoming the go-to music director along with my band, kingsmen for the afrobeats industry. Also, I am proud of constantly raising the bar with each artist that we perform with on stage. In terms of the main things I want potential cliences/followers/fans, etc. to know about my work, I want them to know that their vision (live performance) is my priority and excellence is always my end goal. I have acquired a lot of experiences throughout the years from performing at the small stages to the biggest stages; and every experience has been a lesson learned on how to make sure any artist’s live performance that I’m involved in will always be an amazing experience for the fans and also the artist. I take pride in my work and high quality sound and performance delivery is always on the top of the checklist when preparing for a show.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

The society can make sure that there are equal opportunities available for all creatives, despite your ethnicity or cultural background. Opportunities such as financial advancements via agencies, banks, etc. A lot of businesses fail as a result of lack of financial resources to expand and grow the business. Therefore, the society can advocate for equal opportunities amongst all creatives necessary for them to thrive, grow and achieve their dreams and accomplish their goals (whatever it may be).

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My driving mission is to give artists the ability to externalize their imagined creations through excellence in musicianship, arrangements, production and musician staffing. By growing a team of established, and well-respected musicians via my band/business, KINGSMEN, I look to creating a professional reputation each time a KINGSMEN musician is supporting an artist on and off the stage.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kinglekan.com/
• Instagram: @king_lekan
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kinglekanmusic/
• Twitter: @king_lekan
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KingLekan
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/king_lekan