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I Dropped Out Of Varsity  Because Of N20,000— Ice Prince

Music Star, Ice Prince, has revealed that he dropped out of the university after two months because he could not afford to pay N20,000.

Speaking in an interview with okayafrica.com, Ice Prince, whose real name is Panshak Zamani, said, “ For me, music at some point was my only option. That was the only option I had because I had to drop out of university two months in. I didn’t spend up to two months in school and I had to drop out because of some measly 20,000 Naira at the time (maybe $50 or $60 at the time, I’m talking about 2006/2007) I dropped out of school because I couldn’t afford a small amount of money and the only place I could keep myself out of trouble, out of the street life was the studio.

“I just literally became a studio rat from there on and luckily for me, it was around the time when MI just moved back to Nigeria from school in America and it was about the same time me and Jesse Jagz were in the same church. So it was easy for me to find a family in the Abagas around the time I was going through a tough period, it looked like my future there was no school anymore and it was just music for me after school didn’t work out. I’ll say the fact that I wasn’t able to go to school was what pushed me into doing music.”

Talking about his breakthrough song, ‘Oleku’,  Ice Prince said, “First of all, I don’t like to refer to Oleku as a hit. It’s a classic. It’s a timeless song. It’s not even a song, it’s an anomaly. It’s something that even I personally cannot explain to you. Any artist could have made that song. Anybody could have sang that song. I think God just chose me for whatever reason you know, you can’t explain what God does.

He added, “Oleku is not a song, it’s a classic. And the inspiration was, I’ll say God gave us that inspiration because Jesse Jagz made that beat under ten minutes. I’ve been saying this for the past ten years and I really mean it. We didn’t really know it was going to really be like that. When I submitted the song to my label, Chocolate City, it wasn’t like the top choice; it wasn’t a song on the release plan.

There’s a story on how the song was released. It was leaked by Anuel, the official photographer for EME back then. Anuel was in university at the time in Minna and we went to perform in Anuel’s school and I left the song on Anuel’s computer. Somehow the song leaked and it became very big in Anuel’s university, Futminna. From there on, it just became a global smash and even the record label couldn’t stop it at that point. It just became something that was big. I wouldn’t say “Oh I was thinking about something,” nah it was just God. Inspiration from God, it’s not a song, it’s a classic. It’s timeless.”

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