Cute Sagay is a Delta State born gospel act and model. He chatted with us recently on his career and more.
How do you get your inspiration?
Basically, my environment, children and obviously God, because He’s my maker.
What kind of music do you do?
I do gospel, RnB, soul, a little of soft rock, but I can cut across.
What does it take to be a gospel musician?
I think you have to know God. You have to know Christ; you have to be born again. Gospel for me means good news. Like they say, you cannot say what you have not thought of; it’s who you are that would eventually speak out.
Since you started, what are the indicators that you’re on the right track?
I get people inspired. One of my songs, Take The World, inspired one of my brothers. I didn’t really think much of that song. Someone also called me that that song really inspired him and I was so happy.
When exactly did you start music?
I was age 9 when I joined the children’s choir; we used to hit these cans while I was a child to play music and then my mummy played a lot of music at home, so it just became a part of me. It was later I found out that my father played the piano and wrote a lot of songs. But I’ll just say it’s in-built. Professionally, I would say my first single came out in 2010. I started working with a couple of people like Buchi – I worked with Buchi for like three and a half years before I started a solo career. I still work with him though. Sometimes I do voice-over for him in the studio. I released my first single, Make That Change, which I wrote for Nigeria @ 50. That was when I first launched myself out. A charity organization in the UK sponsored it for Nigerian children. They wanted to tie it to Nigeria’s 50th Independence so they called me to write a theme song for it and of course, it was channeled to the Independence of Nigeria. When you listen to the song, you’ll get a grip of the song.
What is your relationship with Buchi?
Buchi is like my big brother. Sometimes he just humbles you by calling you “my colleague”. But he’s just someone I’ll always look up to because I’m still learning a lot from him. He’s a good leader. He’s someone you would still learn from, even after working with him. He gave me a shocker a while ago. He was coming back from Calabar or Port-Harcourt, and there’s this program he hosts on Brila FM called House of Judah, and all of a sudden he just called me and said “Cute, I believe you can do it, I need you to host the show”. I was so dazed. I said no. He said yeah, I believe you can do it. Believe me, I did it and it went fantastically well. So, that’s the relationship. We’re very close.
How many tracks have you produced?
I have four that I’m pushing, but I have over 8-10 tracks that I’m still working on. I still look forward to making more that would make up my album.
So, out of all of your songs which one would you say touches you the most?
You know every song has it’s feeling. Make That Change, about Nigeria, is quite soulful. I think it’s something that would move an individual or a nation to a positive side. Imela that I have shot its video was inspired by my daddy. They are quite many. There’s this one that I quite enjoy – it’s on a tenor beat titled The Leader. They all inspire me.
What are you working on now?
Yes! I look forward to pushing out my album. I’ve been working on that and the video, Imela, which is barely two months that I released it. It was nominated in the UK for Best Video Category in 2013. A category where we had people like Sammie Okposo and Nathaniel Bassey. It was like my first exposure. It was also nominated by the African Gospel Music Awards in the UK. It was a big deal for me. It’s like my major plan for now.
Where do you see yourself in the next three years?
I look forward to covering larger places, larger crowd, obviously out of Nigeria, cutting across Europe and US. I really want to impact lives. You know when you look at the songs from the 80’s, you still want to listen to them because they have a lot of meaning; they still inspire a lot of us. I grew up with a lot of music from the 80’s, so I look forward to the next three years where I would have become a household name. I want to go out there and become a role model to people that are even older than me. I want to be able to release more albums. I want to be able to reach out to people’s needs. Like we say; change, we can’t really wait for it to come from Aso Rock. You can become the change. I look forward to becoming a change in my community with the little or the mega thing I can do. I look forward to impacting lives.