Project Fame West Africa Season 5: Meet Your Contestants.

The fifth season of the MTN Project Fame West Africa has kicked off with contestants already in the academy.

A total of 15 contestants were picked at the recently held opening gala on Saturday, August 4, 2012. Side attractions from the gala included performances from Project Fame season 4 winner Monica and Chuddy K.

A final contestant will however be chosen through a ‘Wild Card Contest‘ which will see the academy accommodate 16 contestants in total.

A few changes have been made from last year’s show – Most notably, Nigezie boss Femi ‘Kwame’ Aderigbigbe who has served as a judge since inception has been replaced with  Nigerian-German musician, producer Ade Bantu.

The duo Joseph Benjamin and Adora Oleh will continue as hosts.

Check out your contestants and pick a favourite!

The ever-smiley Adetoun is a bubbly 26 year-old woman whose confidence exudes in leaps and bounds. She is a studio-rat as far as she’s concerned, and has done a lot of back-up work for established artistes.

Adetoun is a graduate of Mass-Communication from Olabisi Onabanjo University. She caters for a living and has a very outgoing and friendly personality and believes in people. She is highly competitive in nature and is aiming for the Top.

Ayobami Ayoola Ayolola is the 25 year old personal assistant to renowned saxophonist Mike Aremu. Apart from his involvement in this saxophonist’s band, Ayo’s father is also a pastor and was a choir director for many years.

In Ayo’s own words, ‘my father discovered the music in me’ – and for this he is grateful to his dad whom he speaks of with pride. Ayo is also an actor and has had a few stints on television. He says he cannot run away from acting but music is his first love and seeing as this is his fifth stab at Project Fame West Africa, he intends to milk the opportunity for all it is worth.

Brenda Adigwe is a 16 year old go-getter. She is a third-year mass communication undergraduate of the Littoral University, Porto-Novo, Benin Republic. Brenda tends to come across as older than her age and even though the competition is open to only people eighteen years and above, she returned for another season of auditions to give it another shot and convinced the academy to let her in.

Brenda is very close to her mother and hopes to make her proud by going far in the competition and possibly emerge as the winner.

She’s 23 years old, studies Linguistics and African Languages at University of Benin, Edo State – Nigeria, and is in love with a young man who she calls her best friend. He’s a base guitarist and her number one fan apart from her family.

Chinyere is the last-born child and she receives a lot of support from her older siblings who are all married. She tends to be a bit shy and taciturn but she does express herself well enough and her biggest asset is her crystal-clear voice.

Dark-skinned and very expressive Christian is of mixed Nigerian heritage. His father is Yoruba and his mother is from Benue state. Christian has lived in Markudi for most of his life and is a fourth year Computer-Science student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Markudi, in Benue state, Nigeria.

Even though he has lived in the middle belt for most of his life, Christian emphasises that he is a Yoruba boy through and through and nothing can change that. Christian loves television, movies, and travelling. A very jovial sort, Christian does not fail to point out that he is only jovial and happy-go-lucky when he wants to be. He takes his music seriously and intends to win this competition, bringing the first prize back to Benue like Monica Ogah did in Season four.

Dimipre Kosu likes to be known as ‘Diddy’. He is 20 years old and an Engineering fourth-year undergrad at Niger Delta University. Diddy Kosu is playful and has his own style which he believes tends to stand him out from the crowd. He loves rock jazz and soul music and really loves to dance.

At the slightest opportunity, Didi is likely to break into ‘Azonto’ – the now famous dance of Ghanaian origin which the young man seems to have mastered and given his own unique twist.

Edward is a 26 year-old and has being doing music and song-writing for a living since his college days. He has a little daughter and a girlfriend both of whom he loves very much. He says he’s a good guy but doesn’t smile much because his eyes have seen ‘too many things’ during the savage war years that besieged Sierra-Leone.

Edward says he isn’t religious but is quite spiritual and is very connected to God. He certainly doesn’t see himself as a ladies’ man but is not averse to making new friends along the way, if they can accept him for who he is.

Grace Mark is a smallish twenty-four year old. Pretty-faced and with a chirpy speaking voice, she comes alive when she’s singing. Grace is from a large family – she has nine siblings and apparently, almost everyone in her home has a flair for music.

She has come a long way since last year, when she reached the semi-final stage of the auditions, so she is determined to make this opportunity in the Project Fame Academy count.

Joshua Owusu Effriyie is 20 years old, dark skinned, quite charming, and has a personality that draws you in. The young Ghanaian singer says he loves to eat, and therefore, loves to cook.

He spends a lot of time in the kitchen but when he isn’t cooking up a delicious dish, he is really into video games and his music. Joshua plays the saxophone, the guitar and the keyboard and is a staunch Arsenal Football Club fan.

Kemi is a 20 year-old ND-1 student of Federal Polytechnic, Offa – Kwara State. She grew up with her mother who is a fashion designer. Kemi is also a talented seamstress but unlike her mother, is yet to master the art of cutting design-patterns.

Kemi loves singing and wants to take it to the highest height. She believes she picked up the talent from her father who used to sing and play several instruments during his lifetime. She knows she has a lot to learn and wants to lap up as much as possible from all the faculty memebers.

Marvellous Odiete is 33 years old. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan. His father is a pastor and Marvellous sometimes works in the church’s music department. Marvellous has a very strong voice which he wants to learn to use better.

Having done some studio gigs to earn a living, he believes it is time for him to take the bold step and do something really big with his talent, hence his participation in the competition. Marvellous says that despite his desire to win, he only sees himself as a competitive person, but not a desperate one and so he intends to do the best he can, take advantage of the platform which MTN Project Fame West Africa presents, and see where this takes him.

Musulyn Myers is a 19 year-old Liberian girl who likes to laugh a lot. Bubbly-spirited and sweet, Musulyn says she is kind-hearted and likes to put a smile on people’s faces. Musulyn is best friends with her mother but points out that it hasn’t always been that way. As a result of the war, she and her mum had to move to the United States of America when the young Musulyn was two years old and only returned three years ago in Musulyn’s mid-teens.

Musulyn says that having grown into a young adult, she finds that she and her mother understand each other a lot more and so their relationship is tighter now than it ever was. She loves singing and dancing and also plays the keyboard. She hopes that the Academy will give her insights about how to develop her music career and significantly improve her abilities and wants to learn.

Oyinkansade Akande, is a dark-skinned handsome young man with a calm demeanour and an air of wisdom around him. Oyinkansade knows what he wants and this isn’t a new trait of his. Always hoping to have formal knowledge of music, Oyinkansade felt that the stars shined on him when he finally got the opportunity to study music in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He now has a diploma in Music and is happy to have made the choice to go for it when he did.

He however feels that he doesn’t know enough about music to make a successful career of it and for this reason he hopes to go far in the Project Fame West Africa competition. Oyinkansade is south-pawed and plays the left-handed guitar.

Sonia Obi is a 22 year old student of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the National Open University. She is social and likes to talk. She however tends to be pretty sensitive and emotional especially concerning her late mother whose ring she still wears as a keepsake.

She loves to sing and gives it her best. While she admits her emotions are close to the surface she wants to do well in the Academy to make her mother proud.

Tega Apochie is a 22 year-old Delta State babe who has a non-identical twin brother Tejire. Tega loves singing but if she wasn’t following the path of music, she would like to try her hands at fish-farming. She has her own style fashion-wise and readily admits to liking attention.

She has a distinct voice which she hopes can be trained to be outstanding. She is looking forward to the Academy as a growth experience in music, style and performance too.

Comments

comments