Sam Kargbo, SAN, posing with copies of FAMOUS FACES at the unveiling in Lagos, in 2022
Barrister Sam Kargbo (Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN), the Chief Executive Officer of Sam Kargbo Productions (SKP), with offices in Lagos, Abuja, and other parts of West Africa, is one person that believes so much in the enormous power and respect entertainment commands when fully utilized, especially through movies and music. His world-acclaimed movie titled Blood Diamond, which was an expose on how the greedy struggle for the control of diamond fields which fuelled the war that ravaged Sierra Leone, is still being used as a reliable case study, by filmmakers and researchers globally. His outfit has equally discovered and nurtured some of the big names in the nation’s music industry. Among them is the award-winning X-Project, two of its members he discovered as refugees from Sierra Leone.
In this interview, Kargbo, a former lecturer and member of the editorial board of Independent newspaper, who’s now a Senior Special Assistant to the Minister of the
Federal Capital Territory, spoke on why he’s passionate about entertainment, repositioning the industry, piracy, and many more.
Enjoy the interaction!
You are a trained lawyer. Why this passion for music, Nollywood and entertainment in general?
I have always loved music. In my secondary school days, we do not have DJs we had MCs going around with turntables. And you go buy records… You don’t call it DJ. We were MCs then. You could carry those things around; you play at parties and all of that. Basically, why I am so much into entertainment is because of the people you see around me. Apart from what I do, most of the people you see around me are the people you may call people I adopt. I know how I made myself or how God made me through people and so my principle in life is that if I find you with a talent and you are serious with that talent, I do the little I can to help you actualize that talent.
That is what I have done for many people, especially entertainers. I have done that for those who are into filmmaking. I have done that for those who are acting, I have done that for some other musicians. I just believe that it is the easiest way to keep them busy and make them earn a living for themselves. Most of the people you see around, I have assisted them in one-way or the other. I have a talent for assessing people. I don’t want to call names now, but you know some of them.
My history is really my reason for doing what I do. But for God, I would have been an armed robber or any other person out there who never went to school. You can imagine you taking care of yourself from about nine years; you’ve been by yourself and still the person that you are. You know that God must have been your guiding father. Because of that, I am always too eager to help. I can tell you; I have produced lawyers, engineers and even journalists.
Why the long break from Nollywood?
What happened was that I learnt you don’t go into things from the outside. You must really have a very good knowledge of what you have to do. But that is not to say that I regretted doing what I did. Because in terms of international exposure, no other endeavour in life has given me leverage like Black Diamond. For two years, Professors and university people all over the world always sought me. In Blood Diamond, I introduced an angle of the war in Sierra Leone then.
When we went to do the premiere in Sierra Leone, the President called me, we sat one on one. He was really impressed that somebody could just sit down on his own, brought out things like that and spends his own money without even any connection to anybody. He couldn’t believe it. He said did you get funding from anybody, I said no and told him what I went through. Believe me, when Americans did their Blood Diamond, I was so happy because I saw the relationship between their own and mine. I was on a mission to actually draw attention to the fact that Charles Taylor was a very serious factor in the war in Sierra Leone then.
So how soon are you going back to Nollywood or have you abandoned the industry?
No. I will never. That is a very serious medium; it is a medium you can never really go wrong with in terms of mass outreach. That is the best medium. At 49, anything I do, I should be serious about it. And I should try to make a difference too.
What do you see as the future of the entertainment industry in Nigeria, with bias for music?
It is very bright but what I think is lacking is good songs. The producers have their standards. And to me, you can hardly take anything from them. They’ve been able to give us the Nigerian beat. They’ve been able to make you listen to good music, from Nigeria. They’ve been able to carve that niche. They’ve been able to give us an identity. For now, they’ve been able to remove the foreign music, or western music out of the clubs. Today, 99% of the content in clubs are Nigerian songs, even the radios. I hardly know about what is happening out there again. Because these boys have given us the content we need. To me, that is good.
The only thing that I feel that is missing is, perhaps, assistance to protect that effort. Piracy is still much around. And you have family of people that you call pirates who just sit somewhere and feed on the sweat of people. To me, I would not want to say I sympathize with them because I can imagine what it will be for me to feed my family on other peoples’ sweat. I would rather be an armed robber than for me to do that because it is bad. The pirates feeding on the sweat of decent people, they are as dirty as the armed robbers. To me, it is unfortunate. If only that part is addressed, believe me, very soon, we will start having it big like our western counterparts.
What solutions can you proffer?
You see, it is difficult to curb it because… Almost all of us are guilty. It is so easy to see a DJ do a compilation and you take it. You see a compilation on the street, you very well know that this is a pirated copy, you take it, you play it and you are happy to play it in your car; at home and even dancing. Why not insist on buying the original CD. I have been trying to educate my friends, that if you don’t help them, they will not have the mind to do that. And for us the public, if we don’t patronize them, it will be very ineffective. In a nutshell, I will say let the government strengthen the copyright commission. And let the right people do the work. Let them have the tool to do their work also. And let the police know that the law that helps them to fight armed robbers, should be used to fight pirates.
Do you think the government is doing enough for the creative industry?
It is very difficult to make the conclusions that you expect of me because I am now more sympathetic with the government than I was before I took office. I remember our days on the editorial board of Independent Newspapers, it is beautiful to talk from outside. But when you are in, you now see that it will take a while before government starts performing the way it should. The courage of people, the courage of thinking about values impact on the government image out there. We forget that the government is the people itself. The government can never grow beyond its people. And the people in government are just a fraction of the people you have out there.
Government business is difficult business. For now, you could see most of the time; my eyes are popping because I work sleeplessly. You hardly have time for critical thinking. I no longer even write because I know my standard has dropped. It will have to take a while before I will sit down and say let me write again. We are really now cautious, because we know some of these things, you know why they are where they are. But what I would say to give you an answer is, yes government is trying; yes government needs to do more. People from outside will help government do more. And let people who have expertise, knowledge and competence be put at the right places. Most of the time, people who bring ideas when you give them the job to do practically, they fail.
What is the vision behind SKP and how has it been running it?
We have been around since, and my dream is to be one of the best music/movie outfits in the whole of Africa. I want SKP music label to be one of the best on the continent. And if God still blesses me the way he has been blessing me, I know it is realizable, we will definitely conquer the world. And I am going to realize that in my lifetime. Because I hardly want to do things half measures, sometimes because of what I do, I hardly have time to see through some of these things. That is why they are put on hold. For example, movie making. Above all, it’s about time we begin to take entertainment serious as a nation, because entertainment is big business globally.
You used to be a writer/lecturer, what happened?
Well, I’m just on break for now, because of my busy schedules. When the workload reduces, I will definitely go back to these noble professions. I miss writing and impacting knowledge on people as a lecturer.
Your boys, X Project, are doing well, how does this make you feel?
I feel good and I’m thankful to God that it is happening sooner than we expected it. They are good both in terms of personal development and the audience they thrill. They have released three albums. This is the fourth album. Many other people would have passed through their roads and still not get to the heights they have attained.
When you first discovered them did it occur to you that they would become successful so soon?
I am not one that would want to tell a lie about this. The only thing that I can tell you is that I know that they have talents and it was that talent that endeared me to them. I saw a bright future. I knew we were going to succeed. And of course, with the grace and blessings of God, we have succeeded. But what I wasn’t sure of was for it to have happened this soon.
Do you think they will surpass the success recorded with Lorile by the time this new album is out?
Definitely, you know what happened with Lorile, it had very fine songs. Lorile just came like a bang. And it killed all the other good songs. In this new work, we want to avoid a situation where one of the songs will swallow the other good songs. But in any case, for all the songs we have now, it will be very; very difficult for you to say this is going to be the hit, because all of them are good. We have listened to the songs and in fact, there is kind of a quiet competition among the producers. Luckily for them, all the people handling their works are my personal friends. They know me for what I want. I said to them, hey, this is competition time. You like it or not, the one that gives me the best is going to get the best from me.
They now play African beats, but when they started first, they wanted to be R’n’B singers. And all of them were all into singing. These boys already have what most of us don’t have. What most musicians don’t have even. They have good voices, they can sing very well. But if they go into African music, they can easily create a better image for themselves instead of copying Westerners. So R’n’B is good, but it is difficult to convince people that R’n’B is part of us.
Mind you, their first album was not released in Nigeria. Tumba Dance was released in Sierra Leone. The period coincided with the time I took Nollywood stars to shoot a movie, titled; Blood Diamond. I was there and that was where they released the first album. It was the second album that was the first in Nigeria. They have a studio at home to make their work easier. I know how to dance very well. I have what you will call good music sense. If your music is good, I will tell you. If it is not good, forget it.
First published, October 2009.
