Reality TV star and Singer, WhiteMoney, sits with Chude Jideonwo on: #WithChude, to discuss winning the Big Brother Nigeria show in 2021, his music career and his ultimate goal of inevitably winning the Grammys.
He discussed not having a degree and how watching foreign films and observing people helped him improve himself.
WhiteMoney said: “The biggest teacher any man can have is experience.
“The second teacher anyone can have is life, and the third is people, not even your parents.
“You need life, people and experience to become a better person in life.
“School won’t give you that experience you need.
“The school will give you theory, life will give you practical.
“For example, the highest educational qualification I have is O’ level, National Examination Council.
“That’s all I wrote.
“I didn’t write WAEC, JAMB or anything, but I still speak good English.
“I hate reading, but I love to listen, so I SEE a lot of movies and emulate the way they talk and it impacted me.
“If I am to act the role of someone with an American accent, I have to SEE five Black American movies.
“By the time I’m done with them, it automatically programmes in my head against the shoot the next day.
“It helps fine-tune my English, and how to read contracts and sign them.
“I stopped at NECO because that was where the money stopped.
“It was my uncle who sent the N3,500 for the form.
“It was like two days before it closed that I got it, and I passed very well.”
WhiteMoney also shared how poverty helped him remain tenacious in spite of rejections: “The biggest motivation for me is poverty.
“If you love your situation and the way you are, then don’t work.
“But if you are tired of begging for handouts, not being recognised or tired of Grammys.
“Poverty will motivate you to go out there and do something for yourself.
“So, poverty pushed me to audition four times in a row, and I won the fourth time.”
On handling vicious feedback from the audience on his song: “Selense,” WhiteMoney shared: “It didn’t affect me like that, to be very honest.
“If you really SEE the show, or if you ask people, they’ll tell you that WhiteMoney has zero impulses, my emotions are zero.
“If you talk, it hardly gets to me because once I do what I am satisfied with, any other thing is ‘jara’ (extra).
“The thing is that the song that I drop, if you give it to one of the A-List artists, it will get more buzz than what it is now, but of course, I was known for cooking in the Big Brother house, if it’s not cooking nobody wants to hear it.
“And I’m in a position where I have to constantly prove myself that I can do this and actually cook and be successful at both of them.
“But I won’t be the guy that gets old and regrets doing what he didn’t love.
“I’ll keep dropping it and I know that one day, White Money is going to get the Grammys.
“Even the big celebrities get criticised.
“In fact, the criticism I got for Selense, is not up to what I got for Na We We, the one I featured Zoro, but it helped the music to enter Apple’s chart in two days.
“Up till now, I am still promoting the song, and the comments on YouTube now are positive.”
SEE the excerpts from the interview here:? https://youtu.be/_E8cUrAKe_M
#WithChude is a network of media products across TV, Film and podcasts telling stories that enable and strengthen the mind, heart and spirit.
The weekly interviews are widely syndicated across terrestrial television and social media platforms reaching an average of eight million people weekly – positioning it as the most watched and most syndicated weekly talk show (digital + traditional) in the region.
It has become a safe space for guests to talk about things publicly for the first time.
Actor Joke Silva revealed that her husband, Olu Jacobs, was dealing with dementia with Lewy body for the first time on the show, and producer Kemi Afolabi opened up about her experience dealing with Lupus on #WithChude.
That month, Lupus and Kemi Afolabi were among the top Google Nigeria searches.
The interviews have been featured everywhere, from the BBC to the New York Times.
The documentary and travelogue series: #ChudeExplains, has tackled issues from criminal justice reform to Gen Z coming of age.
The show launches the #WithChude Global series in 2023.
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