Stay away from drugs if you want to last – K1 warns musicians

Nigerian Veteran Fuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, widely known as K1 De Ultimate, on Friday, advised up-and-coming musicians to shun drugs and focus on their crafts, TopNaija reports.

K1 gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.

The only Fuji musician to perform at Troxy, WOMEX, and SOB’s urged artistes not to allow drugs and other social vices to derail them from God’s purpose for their lives.

According to the ‘Ade Ori Okin’ crooner, staying away from drugs and violence will also earn them more respect from their fans.

“I don’t smoke, but the issue of drugs goes beyond mere smoking. Today, people inject and sniff all sorts of things, but we must all teach artistes about the consequences of the usage of drugs.

“It is not true that it is only after the use of drugs that they will give good account of themselves on stage; It is all about education.

“But this problem is not peculiar to fuji, it is the same with all genres of music, talk about Rock music, it is important that we educate them. If I do drugs I’d look awful at my age, just focus on what’s important, which is your craft.

“They should take their future seriously, if I had been a drug user, I probably wouldn’t be here,” he said.

On the issue of artistes throwing shades at their colleagues in order to test their popularity, he told NAN that the trend is universal and not peculiar to the fuji genre of music.

“We used to listen to foreign music a lot when we were young, but many people don’t pay attention to the fact that even those foreigners abuse themselves in the songs,” he said.

K1 De Ultimate began his global tour between North America and Europe in 1986 and performed at Hammersmith Town Hall in 1987. That was followed by New York city, United States with full Talazo Band on September 28 1990, London Yuppie 1 & 2 Nights 1991/92, European Tour 1995, Berlin 1997, North America (USA & Canada ’98), Canada 2000, and USA Tour 2003. He has continued non stop touring annually since.[3] In 1995 he delivered the first Fuji performance ever at WOMAD Festival.