Waje recounts ‘sapa’ and pre-stardom experience from 2002

The singer said that because of the shame attached to her adolescent pregnancy, she was forced to relocate from Benin to Enugu to live with her aunt. It was at a church in Enugu that her talent as a singer was discovered, and she signed her first record label deal when she was 19.

“I think ‘Do Me’ came out in 2006 or 2007. As at the time ‘Do Me’ came out, I was already signed to a record deal five or six years in. I got signed because I remember my daughter was just about 1 and I was about 19 at the time, So I got signed and I moved to Enugu. When I had my daughter, the stigmatisation and everything, you know teenage pregnancy and all of that. So I just couldn’t live in Benin anymore, so I left Benin and moved to Enugu, to my mum’s sister’s house.”

Waje then went on to give more details about her life in Enugu. She talked about how she worked at a church as a secretary with a salary of N1,000, which is the equivalent of N5,000 in today’s naira.

“I now stayed, such an amazing woman, I call her big mummy. I stayed with her and she used to attend a church called Almond Chapel. Because I hadn’t gotten into school yet, I started working as a church secretary. So my salary was one thousand naira and this was the year 2002 and one thousand naira maybe would be five thousand naira today. It was a growing church but I enjoyed it because I used to wear my aunty’s skirt suits, I needed to be a grown-up.

Waje revealed that her decision to do mainstream music was based on God’s instruction, as she has always wanted to do only gospel.

“I was in the choir and one Sunday after singing, that was when I met my mentor Chris Madubuko. So when I met him, he heard when I sang and he was like ‘I have a record label, you sing well and you should be signed. I was like no I wasn’t called to be signed. I was called to sing the gospel. Even if it wasn’t gospel, I didn’t want to put my voice on a track. I thought as far as music was concerned, it was church.”

“I was fine with singing from church to church. Then he convinced me that ‘God gave you such a beautiful gift, you can’t just be there and you can make money from this gift.’ So I signed with him.”

Nigerian singer Aituaje Iruobe is better known by her stage name Waje. She first became well-known for her appearance on the P-Square remake of ‘Omoge Mi.’ Waje also appeared on the duo’s 2008 hit song ‘Do Me.’