Perry Martins
After the release of his Nigeria-Kenyan gospel sound collaboration – Mungu Wangu, we thought to speak with gospel music minister Freke Umoh about the song and the inspiration behind a Nigerian-Kenyan collaboration. This is arguably the first time a Nigerian is collaborating with Kenyans to do gospel music, and we must say, it turned out very well.
GT: Sir. You have been in the gospel music industry for a long time, how would you describe your experience so far?
Freke Umoh: It has been an interesting journey. I’ve been involved in gospel music ministry for nearly 2 decades but it was not until 6 years ago that I began to put out music.
GT : Waooh! Which was your first Recorded song and video?
Freke Umoh: That would be “ibagha” in 2012 produced by Wole Oni and shot by Eddie Brendan. However, my first ever recorded song was “abasi mi”. It was a recording of just the acoustic guitar and my voice sometime in 2000. There was never an official release but it leaked and the rest is history.
GT: This recent work with Voice of Purpose.. What a cross cultural, inter-national collaboration! Tell us about it
Freke Umoh: God orchestrated it all. We were in Nairobi for a concert late last year and on our way to one of the rehearsals for my presentation, I felt a nudge for a new song. So I asked my friend to help with translating a few words from English to Swahili and the song “Mungu Wangu” was born. Since I travelled with my producer, a studio session was arranged to record the choir I collaborated with and came back to finish it up in Nigeria. It came out quite well that it was decided that we come back to Kenya to shoot the video.
GT: Oh. Lovely! It is a lovely song indeed, How has the response been with Mungu Wangu.
Freke Umoh : The response has been great, both within and outside the country. Despite the fact the song was done in Swahili, Nigerians have responded very well to the song.
Thank you Freke for granting us this interview! We Love You! Check out other Freke’s song here.
