Popular rapper Zlatan Ibile has opened up about how his journey into music began unexpectedly after he failed to gain university admission.
In a chat with Nandi Madida on Africa Now Radio on Apple Music, the 30-year-old artist revealed that his career path took a turn when his inability to pass certain subjects kept him out of school.
“I was supposed to go to university in 2011/12, but I did not have my complete papers. I failed mathematics and accounting, so I could not go to school that year,” Zlatan said.
The one-year gap that followed gave him idle time, during which he began exploring other interests — one of which became music.
Having grown up as a church boy and choir drummer, Zlatan said his interest in recording music started by chance when a friend, who had no background in music, played him a track he had made.
“But like you said, I used to be a church boy,” he continued.
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“So when I failed my examination and I couldn’t go to school, I started going to the studio. One of my friends just came back home from housing one day, and he played this song. And I knew him very well. I knew him from church. I knew that he has never made music before.
“We went to the studio, and then for the first time, I went on the microphone. It was so funny. And then I came back home. To me, the song was rubbish. It was not making sense. It was my first time.”
Though he didn’t think much of the track, Zlatan said his siblings’ reaction changed everything.
“When I went back home and I played it for all my siblings, and they started making me feel like Jay-Z that day,” he said.
Prompt News reports when he eventually got into university the following year, Zlatan said he still had only a few songs but continued visiting the studio.
“And then, I just started following my friend to the studio from there because I had to sit out one year before going back to school. And I didn’t have up to three songs,” he said.
During his first semester, he entered a rap competition on campus and, to his surprise, emerged victorious.
“I was loving the way people were carrying me, who is an artist now. So I went back to school one year after, and then my first semester in school, the rap competition came up,” he recalled.
“And then, I did not believe that anybody can actually win a car off music, off the kind of music I make. I did not even have up to five tracks.
“The songs were not mixed and mastered. They were just pre-recorded songs. That was the moment I started enjoying the rap. I started enjoying the rap then.
“So, the competition just came up when I was trying to get into this rap game. And then, to cut the story short, out of 140 candidates, I won the car.
“I won the car when I was 19 years old. Yeah, I was so amazed. This was my first semester in school. I have not even attended the first examination in the school. This was just three weeks into the school.”
Zlatan said that winning the car at such a young age marked a turning point in his life — transforming what started as academic disappointment into the birth of a successful music career.
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