How I Got My Stage Name ADEYINKA ALASEYORI

Adeyinka Akinyemi famously known as Adeyinka Alaseyori is an accountant and a Nigerian gospel music minister with three albums to her name title. She was a chorister at Christ Apostolic Church. In 2011, Yinka Alaseyori started her ministry and dived into professional music in 2012.

Let’s quickly inform some of her fans who didn’t know that this superstar is married to her husband, Dave Akinyemi. Reports revealed they got married in 2015 in Lagos and was attended by some celebrities in the entertainment industry like Bunmi Akinnanu Adeoye Omije Ojumi, Ayo Ajewole Woli Agba, Goman Shomolu/Bariga Zone, Dayo Amusa and Ireti Osayemi, among others.

This powerful gospel singer finished from Methodist Girls High School, after which she gained admission to the Lagos State Polytechnic LASPOTECH, where she had a diploma in accountancy. She later proceeded to NOUN National Open University of Nigeria to bag a bachelor’s degree.

As she grew older, Adeyinka joined the Choir at CAC Oke Isegun and later became a member of Jesus The Key Christian Assembly, where she began her ministry as a gospel singer. In 2011, she started her ministry with less than 18 members.

There have been controversies trailing some of her songs. Some people alleged that she doesn’t compose her songs. However, in this interview with City People’s Brands Editor, DAMILARE SALAMI 08155134152, she cleared the air. She also talked about other interesting parts of her life that people haven’t heard before. Below are excerpts from the interview, enjoy.

 

How did music start for Adeyinka Alaseyori?

It’s been 12 years going into 13. It was tedious at the beginning but we continued in it. We worship God in our secret place and He decides to bring us to the limelight. Music is my life, it is what I do for God without the cameras, without social media.

You must have started from the church right?

Yea, I grew up in CAC and that is where it all started for me.

How was it like transiting from the church to the limelight?

The church has always been the limelight for every gospel singer that wants to go global. Every star has a foundation; it’s either the church choir, children's choir or something. It’s a place where we all go, the Lord will groom us there because he knows that there is a place he’s taking us to. We don’t know what’s in the future but He does. So, bringing us into the church every time prepares us for that unknown future in a way that we cannot even explain. Thank God for my parents. They take us to church and learn. Even as children, we attend family service (Eko Idile) where we leant a lot and we were groomed and sing most of the time. We didn’t know that during that process, the Lord was training us for something bigger. Before coming to the limelight, I knew that I had been singing but I wasn’t just famous but I’ve been there. It wasn’t like I just started in a day and became famous immediately. I’ve been working underneath. Today at home, I was just wondering all by myself how God lifts people from nothingness to fame. It’s not about work or how good one is because I’ve been listening to some people that are very good and yet they are not known. I just concluded that there must be something he looks for in people that we all do not know. Anybody doesn’t know what he’s looking for, we just know that we are all doing our best but there must be something that makes him decide who he wants to lift up. That is God and he is just unquestionable.

Which song would you say shut you to the limelight?

It is Arojinle.

Composed by you?

Arojinle was strictly composed by me. (sings) mo ro arojinle lori aiye mi o, ibi aanu baye mi de o, arojinle ni mo ro…. Translated to mean I had a deep thought over my life and the extent mercy has seen me off to is as a result of the deep thoughts… and some other songs like (ese, ese, ese, ooo, ese Oluwa) thank you, thank you, thank you Lord; and other songs that we grew up with in CAC; I don’t know the composers of some of those songs but I grew up with some of them from my childhood. Arojinle was spontaneous worship but the Lord just gave us a separate name for it, and Oniduro too was part of the songs.

It’s been 13 years or thereabout in this business, how many albums have you produced altogether?

To God be the glory, I have 3 albums and several singles. Part of them was He made a way and Aiye Ope Yo and the CD is out too I guess.

We’ve talked about the past; now let’s look at the future. What are we expecting from you?

This year I think I will be shooting more singles. The Lord has been giving more songs back to back, I don’t know how but one of them is Aanu lo bi ( Mercy produced this) at times when people see you doing well, some think it is a charm. People call me asking me to take them out where I pray but I don’t have anywhere. People feel like there’s something I am doing but there’s nothing special. So when the Lord gave me that song that it is his mercy that has made some people look like experts not really their work or how they do it, I was able to relate with it well. It is the mercy of God that differentiates that person from others. You can have two people working together on the same job at the same office and you see one doing far better than the other, sometimes it is not because the person is doing anything specially but the mercy of God. I feel like the song is going to be another good song that everyone would relate with because my songs have always been about my life and the people around me. People can actually relate with what I am saying and the messages the songs are passing across. For example, Ese Aye Ope Yo explained that after all the nights without food, I can now afford a three square meal. It does not necessarily mean that I can afford to build a house; sometimes one goes fasting for the children’s sake. There were periods I was sent out of class because of my inability to pay school fees but right now, we are sending our children to school and that is not happening. After all those periods of nothing, glory came forth out of the nothingness.

This response has inspired my next question. What was growing up like for you?

I grew up with my grandma, my dad and mum had some issues and that made me practically stay with my grandma and later with my mum. It’s not as if we had it all rosy for us, in fact, there was nothing rosy for us. We had 7 people in a room plus my mum making 8 in all in the same room that I grew up with. That is the story of my growing up in a nutshell. There’s something I am grateful to my parents for; that is the fact that they gave me Christ. They made me know the way, they made me go to church even when I didn’t want to. At a time in my life, I met Christ because they kept asking me to go to church always. I can’t erase their part from my story because they actually made me like going to church. My mum would take us to practically all the churches to go and pray which has paved way for us now.

How did you get your stage name Adeyinka Alaseyori?

I got it from my first album. My initial name was Hallelujah Praise Team but when I released my first album Alaseyori mi, everyone started calling me Adeyinka Alaseyori and the name just clicked. The name today has become a global brand and we want to thank God for taking us this far.

I was expecting to see you at the 80 hours marathon praise in commemoration of Daddy Adeboye’s 80th birthday celebration, why were you not there?

I feel I was not invited. There are many souls out there that God is using and some people might not really know Adeyinka Alaseyori. Do you agree? That is me, that is my life, that is how I reason. I believe that no matter how famous you might think you are, there are some people somewhere who don’t really know you. I have not arrived yet, I am not there yet but I know that a day will come when I will be invited and you will see me on the altar ministering. Definitely, Daddy Adeboye is our father and we celebrate him in our own way with or without going to the stage to do that.

Going forward, what should your teeming fans expect from you apart from the singles you talked about?

Well, expect a lot of activities on social media. We just concluded a 21-day online worship experience that many people are still watching and are talking about. We did 21 days at a stretch and it was really powerful. I have always told myself to be prepared for whatever comes my way because I know that if you are getting to where the Lord is taking you and you are in the limelight, you should expect a lot of things out there. There will be a lot of untrue stories about you; even things that you do not know about. So, I am prepared for these kinds of things. At times I read some funny comments and some people think that those comments get at me but they don’t. I have prepared my mind that all these things are bound to happen. The only focus I shouldn’t lose is God’s; every other thing is hearsay. In the journey of life, don’t lose God even if you lose everything because God will draw men back to you. All I do is try to get better every day. When people tell me things or correct me, I get better at it and that is the way to grow. Thank you so much City People for your time.