Man Behind the Music - Paul Yomi Oyekoya

You could say that Yomi (aka Paul Oyekoya) came to the music industry in a roundabout way. Born in England to Nigerian parents—with an extended family living in Nigeria, including the famous artist and producer OJB Jezreel, and Tintin Imevbore, the radio personality and founder of iGroove Radio—he grew up with an ironclad work ethic instilled in him by his mother and father. He started boarding school at the tender age of seven, which is also when he set his sights on his first successful career—not in music, but in the world of high finance.

“I knew even then I was going to be an investor,” he explains. “Growing up I was very aware of the sacrifices that were made for me, and there was never any question that I would progress through education, grab what opportunities I was given, and one day be able to help provide for my family.”

After graduating from St Edmund’s College Ware Hertfordshire, England’s oldest Catholic School, he studied economics at the University College London and launched a prestigious career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers and other global firms. But all along, he had a separate passion for music, which he indulged any way he could. “Even in boarding school, I was always cutting up tapes or plugging the microphone into the big boom boxes at the time so I could record over tracks. It used to frustrate me to listen to how songs ended, thinking they should end a different way…I realized I had a gift to write music.” For years, he entered writing competitions on the sly, hung around recording studios to try and learn the equipment, and even wrote jingles for the local pirate radio stations—without ever telling his parents or his friends about it.

He continued to dabble in music in different ways through his 20s, but a pivotal event occurred one summer in the 1980s when he met Christian Okpala, who would become one of his best friends and eventually his business partner. “Someone said to me, you should meet Chris because he does what you do,” Yomi remembers. “I didn’t really understand what that meant, because I never really told anyone what I did, but people kind of knew I was interested in music and entertainment. So we met and had the usual conversation about music, girls and what records we bought, and we quickly realized after about half an hour that we really wanted to get to know each other more. It was like I had really found the yin to my yang.”

Yomi and Blazier were inseparable after that and eventually began writing songs together for artists throughout London’s music and club scene. Before long they were producing their own tracks, and in 2005 they founded Blue Rain Entertainment and set out to record with their favorite artists and create amazing music on their own terms.

For Yomi, who became CEO of the new company, it was like fusing his passion for producing music with the acumen and experience he has earned in the business world. “I feel sorry for artists or producers or anyone who gets into this business and has to be completely reliant on other people to do even the most basic of things,” he says. “I’d go as far as to say there have been many times we’ve met with ‘professionals’ who just weren’t as good as we were at getting things done, because we’ve worked in industry before and we know how things work. We’re not sitting there with the begging bowl out looking for somebody to jumpstart our careers.”

In just a few short years, Yomi’s hard work, skills and knack for surrounding himself with like-minded people are already quietly making Blue Rain Entertainment a major player. A compilation album, “Blue Rain—Can You Stand the Rain” is due out next year featuring an amalgam of artists from multiple genres. While Yomi says he personal tastes lean towards indie rock, hip hop and R&B, he likes to mix it up. “I like a wide variation of music, and this album is going to surprise more than a few people next year.”

One of the label’s most successful partnerships to date has been with Jihan Bowes-Little, a hip-hop and spoken-word artist from California known as Metis. Through Blue Rain and his own company, Roark Entertainment, Metis has released full-length singles, music videos and mixtapes (two produced with DJ Whoo-Kid from G-Unit); he is now signed to a global deal with Warner Brothers, EMI for France and Sony Music for Latin America, and on several fronts Metis’ career seems to be on the verge of exploding: his single “All In” with Aynzli Jones has been featured in an international Coca-Cola advertising campaign, his debut album “The Path” is due out in 2013 and he has a possible book and movie deal based loosely on the story of his life. Blue Rain and Roark are also collaborating on a clothing line together.

Another project hits even closer to home for Yomi. Okpala, his close friend and business partner, had been pursuing a career as a recording artist in his own rite when his dream was cut tragically short by pancreatic cancer late last year. In the months since his death, Yomi and Blue Rain have been hard at work producing a posthumous debut album for Okapala, who was known professionally as Christian Blaizer. Set for release in just a few days, December 12, The Oath features his vocals along with other artists including Erick Sermon, Redman, AZ, royce da 5'9 and K Koke, to name a few. Yomi calls producing the album both a labor of love and a way honoring the legacy of a friend whose loss he has felt acutely on both a personal and professional level. (See related story here, A Debut to Remember: The December 12 digital release of Christian Blaizer’s debut album, The Oath).

Today, although he continues to indulge in the financial market—where his success has also helped empower his support of charitable and socially responsible causes such as London’s Roundhouse, which provides music and production scholarships for young people pursuing the creative arts—Yomi says that his work in music, once kept mostly hidden from most of his family, friends and colleagues, is now front and center in his life. “Music is not an aside for me. It is my core interest.”

Meanwhile, if he has a secret for how easily he has navigated the waters of an industry often dominated by big egos and outsized personalized, it’s his refusal to feel intimidated by it: “It’s a smokescreen, isn’t it?” he says. “I’m not impressed by anybody, whether in the financial or creative worlds, and they shouldn’t be impressed by me. That just comes back to the way I was brought up. So working with these ‘big time artists’ has really been simple for me. I think people who are overwhelmed by this kind of thing are just not very confident in what they do.

“It’s what I always tell me son,” Yomi continues. “Whatever you do, you can be interested in and admire the success and work ethic of people around you, but don’t ever feel you can’t do it yourself. If you’ve got self-belief you can conquer anything, absolutely.”