Charles Novia lends his voice to the Tonto Dikeh new single
saga that has gripped the mediaspere
Tonto's Terrible
Tremolo by Charles Novia.
I have restrained myself for a couple of years from
commenting on Tonto Dike's career after my last comments about her role in the
soft porn movie she acted in two years back, were badly taken by her and she
went on twitter to hurl infantile insults on my person with expletives and
uncomplimentary remarks. My reaction to such then was just a dignified silence.
After all, I had already spoken on her stunted talent as an up and coming
actress and further comments on her incensed tweets were unnecessary.
All through the past few hours, the social media networks
have been abuzz with the new singles of actress, Tonto Dike. She seems to have
joined the actors of her ilk who have the moonlighting itch to delve into
singing. While no one can stop such an ambition by those artistes, I do think
those who surround such artistes are their worst enemies if they can't tell
them the truth about leaving their sometimes doubtful day job. Well, I will! I
listened to Miss Dike's two singles a few minutes ago and my initial
speechlessness morphed to a nagging laughter and then subsided into a befuddled
anguish.
I'm a music label owner (November Records) and have
produced and Executive Produced acts like Majek Fashek, Terry tha Rapman, Zubby
Enebeli etc. I know much about music and the slant of commercial music. But
after listening to Miss Dike's songs, I'm inclined to align with the majorly
negative comments about them on cyberspace. Ah-ah! Whoever produced her knew
she has a bad voice for singing and masked our listening torture with the
Autotune effect.
But even the Autotune rejected any attempt to make a bad
voice worse and Miss Dike came out sounding like she was in mid-stream orgasm
instead of singing! Her anguished tremolos would have been better reserved for
a horror movie sound effect than an attempt at joining the revered profession
of music. If Omotola got away with her last two terrible attempts at singing,
it was because Omotola is a fantastic actress and her fans could forgive her
musical failings after backtracking her body of work in Nollywood.
With Tonto, I can't say much either for her acting depth.
She's a one-dimensional actress in my opinion, who mistakes notoriety for fame.
She needs more training in acting and this I say with all sense of
professionalism as a movie Director. She might achieve greater heights in
acting if she trains more. But she has no heights to achieve in singing. Only a
downward plunge, the stuff bad endings in movies are made of.
‘I am very dangerous when I am cross, Omotola. By the time I am through
with you, you will be shocked what will happen to you and your career’.
The above statement is an extract from the book ''Nollywood Till November''
written by the prolific film maker, actor and director, Charles Novia,
who revealed the secret behind his fight with Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde.
“As the recording of the movie
continued Omotola somehow started getting on a lot of the crew and cast
nerves
Since this is a ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ book and since I am
generally known to be outspoken, I believe I have to reveal a bit of
this, not in any way to disparage her person but to be candid in my
opinion. Little unnecessary skirmishes with one person or the other
became rampant.
It got to a head one day that my Production
Manager, who is usually easy-going and friendly lost his temper and came
to me. ‘Sir, please this will be the last time I will ever work with
you if Omotola features in your movie after this one!’ he complained.
I
was taking everything in my stride and trying to calm frayed nerves
when a couple of days to the end of the shoot, Omotola practically drove
me crazy. I am very calm most of the time as a person and as a movie
director but that day I blew my top! I remember screaming at her
and she was shocked at first but made the mistake of putting up a
defence. That was when I basically warned her in a very deadly tone to
be mindful of me.
Most of my crew members were shocked to see me
in that mood. No one had ever seen me like that. I remember Norbert
Young, Empress and Tari West calming me, while Ramsey sat coolly in a
corner fiddling with his phone. Omotola seeing my mood, wisely went to
her car and sulked.‘Who told you to leave my set?’ I bawled. ‘Get back
here and lets shoot!’
All this and many more filled the beautiful pages of the veteran film-maker's book.