Award-winning music video director Aremu Olaiwola Qudus popularly known as Director K, has revealed that the video for Nigerian singer Teni’s hit song ‘Case,’ brought his work to limelight.
Director K has racked up a clientele of the industry’s top stars, including Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Teni, Rema, Reekado banks and many others.
He also shot the video for Wizkid’s Tems-assisted “Essence,” arguably the song of summer 2021, videos for “Onyeka” and “Wonderful” off Burna Boy’s Grammy-winning Twice As Tall album.
Talking about his journey as a videographer in an exclusive chat with LEADERSHIP, Director K said, “Teni’s ‘Case’ video actually brought me to limelight, we were friends before she became famous, so when she got signed, she told her label about me and I was given the task of shooting the video for the song.
“Most People thought it was shot in South Africa, everybody was like, “is this really Lagos?” When “Sensima” by Skibii dropped, people started blowing up my phone.”
According to Director K, his passion for making videos was the reason for dropping out of school to fully follow his dream.
“I didn’t go to Yabatech for myself, I went for my parents, I was in class at a point and realised I didn’t want to be here and dropped out to focus on shooting on my iPhone.
“I made a promise to myself that I’ll make this work for me because a lot of people I spoke to about dropping out of school felt I was making a mistake by leaving school to shoot music videos on my iPhone,” he said.
In doing his job, the Videographer ssid he ensures there is connection with an artist’s song, research on his or her past jobs, and develop ideas that will add value to the artiste’s brand and introduce something new to the industry that will inspire the creatives.
On the experience of making Wizkid’s global hit song ‘Essence’ and Rema’s ‘Calm Down’ video he said, “It was a beautiful experience shooting ‘Essence’, I enjoyed every bit of it. ‘Calm down’ was also seamless, Rema is an amazing artist that knows what he wants, so it was a great collaboration.”
While giving an insight to how the Nigerian music Industry can improve in making quality videos he said,”I think people should put efforts in being themselves and creating their own style, rather than trying to be or do something someone has already done before.”
He added that his focus for 2024 and beyond, is to create globally renowned visuals.
