Multitalented singer, producer and sound engineer, Tha Suspect a.k.a David Peters in an extensive chat recently with HipHop World Magazine, he opens up on
his arduous childhood, his love for football, the bond he shares with maverick
cinematographer, Clarence Peters and
other illuminating revelations.
What was growing up
like for Suspect?
Growing up wasn’t easy for me at all; I grew up in an
environment where negativity was the norm. I was in one room with like thirteen
to fifteen people; sometimes sef you go dey sleep, you go dey find where to put
leg because if fit be person head. It wasn’t easy living in an environment
where everybody was in your business. While growing up, we had dreams that we
would make it out of the environment, not like we did not like what it does to
us but you know, when you grow up in the midst of thieves, armed robbers, you
know, at some point you might probably have to cover up for them; that’s not
the life; today, this one is alive, tomorrow, the other one is dead and this
are your guys.
You were orphaned at
quite young age; did that complicate your life in anyway?
Was it really at a young age? I can’t remember how old I was
then but I sha know say I don grow small when the thing happen. I was actually
aware of my parents, it wasn’t easy for my dad because it was my mum that went
first, it wasn’t easy for him because that was his woman now, she was the one
that stood up for him all the while. It wasn’t easy and it made me learn that
things would happen and you’d have to just move on with your life. Everything
happens for a reason; if you no come life you no go know say death dey.
Do you think your
parents would be proud of what you have become today?
Truthfully to an extent, I think my dad would be
disappointed. Before he passed on, he saw me make music. He would have
preferred me to get a real job, you know, basically do anything but music. When
I was playing football, my dad and mum called me and where like you have to
choose between football and school. Eventually when my mum passed on and pop c
saw that it seems like ‘this boy is making music and he’s been doing engineering
from a very young age, now I don’t know if I should actually tell him to
actually go back to the football he was doing’ he now preferred the football I
was doing, but there was no way, it was too late.
So how did music
start?
Basically it was fun for me, you know, being in the school
band, playing percussion, setting up drums with plastic containers and actually
playing it to sound like you were listening to real drums. In my hood, people
used to look at me and were like there’s one particular possession with this
boy, we don’t understand this child, let’s just live him, he’s confused, he
plays football very well but this particular one, we don’t understand, until I
started going from place to place then in secondary school, I now did one radio
jingle, then from there, I produced a song for one brick layer friend of mine
which I wasn’t supposed to do anyway ‘cos he just took me along to the studio
to have the experience but I ended up instructing the producer and jointly working
with him on the song. That was just it
for me basically, it wasn’t actually music; it was more of football.
At which point did
you actually decide that it is music and not football?
One day I got back home from training, I dropped my boot, I
picked up my note book and I scribbled something down, like for lines, took one
of those cassettes, pressed record, then I played back then I drummed to what I
wrote down and I was like wow! After then, I never looked back, it was music
all through.
You used to be in a
group, The Praise Brothers, how was it being in this group and what were you
guys up to back then?
It was an acapella group that could do all sorts, they were
good, and they were like one of the best that time. We had album with Cabassa
around 2001. All the other members of the group have left music now though, I
think except the group leader who is in Spain now.
Considering the fact
that you had your roots in gospel music, is there any possibility of you still
recording a gospel album?
Of course, there’s every possibility
How long have you and
Clarence Peters known each other?
I’ve known Clarence since he was a child, that’s my brother
o, he is my blood, I’ve known Clarence o, he used to just eye me like ‘this guy
sha, the way he plays football sha, he’ll just be embarrassing people up and
down and later we now brought him into my group, Praise Brothers, then later on we had issues, he ran off to SA, I
stayed back to horn my craft and then when he came back, he was like, we need
to work. We actually did some projects before he left. We signed some girls
around 2003 or so. You know women now, you cannot put them together in one room
and expect them to behave exactly the same way. They kept giving us issues;
they ought to be the first artistes that we would have signed then. It was when
he came back that we now started Capital Hill music.
Was Capital Hill
solely involved in Music alone, considering that you were a music person and
Clarence was more of a Cimatographer?
Asides music then, me and Clarence used to do sound tracks
for movies. That was like the plan from day one. There’s a possibility we are
still going to delve into that again some time, however, if we are, we are
going do it proper, I mean, we will do a proper movie, we just wanted to set a
standard, everything we want to do, its Capital, people always expect the best
from us so we won’t just come and just shoot, it has to be ground breaking,
that’s why we haven’t touched anything yet.
Speaking of your
plans with nollywood, are we going to see you acting too or you are just going
to be behind the scene?
I might be doing sound designing and still be a face in the
project, just give me the script and ill dissect it. As a matter of fact, I
have had some acting roles in the past, although that was very long ago.
What do you like most
about your profession?
I want to start by saying that music is a swipe card, the
fact that your face is out there is a swipe card, it can open door for you and
sometimes a lot people let this get into their head.
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