Nigerian pop star Modupe-Oreoluwa Oyeyemi better known by her stage name Mo Cheddah, has revealed her battle with depression amongst other things in an exclusive interview with Dang Network.
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The 28 yr old who has been absent from the Nigerian music scene for a while now talked about her troubles with the music industry, her personal life and her battle with depression and hate.
Mo Cheddah said her depression was so bad she had considered committing suicide by jumping off the third mainland bridge when she realised she had been blacklisted by major producers and companies.
She revealed that the Nigerian music industry took its toll on her as it was not hard to notice the hatred towards her from older colleagues in the industry when she first came to limelight.
“I was coming from a naive, God-fearing family and I went into the world of adults and I was thrown into a jungle and people did not care if I was 16, they attacked me,” she said.
“The industry was hostile. I would be performing and they would turn off my microphone because the A-list artist doesn’t like me. There was one day I looked at my Mum and told her ‘you taught me everything about love but you did not teach me to hate’.
I don’t know why she did not, but the truth is there is hate in the world, so I went into the industry thinking everybody loved everybody. I didn’t understand that hate.”
Speaking on her absence from the music scene in recent times after calling it quits with her record label, Knighthouse records; Mo Cheddah said most people did not understand the reason(s) behind her action.
“The day I won the Channel O award, that was around when Twitter came out and people I knew started dragging me online. People started asking why I won the award, people starting questioning me and carrying stories around me.
What broke me was that when I left my label. People chose to pick sides and obviously it wasn’t mine. I felt as if I had failed, especially because I had thought that business will pick up. They had so much hate for me.
They started bad-mouthing me to people, to companies, to producers, so I was kind of blacklisted. They wanted to do everything in their power to ruin me and I felt God forsook me, sadness consumed me,” she revealed.
“I googled ‘there is this darkness inside me’ and I saw a lot of people had it, they were talking about depression. The only reason I did not kill myself, first, I didn’t know how I will kill myself. I thought about it so many times.
I thought of drowning myself in third Mainland Bridge, at times I wanted it to be quick, so I will be praying that God should just kill me. All I had to do was understand that as long as I was at peace with this person, every other thing will be OK. I live to be happy.” She concluded
Mo Cheddah broke into the music scene at the tender age of 16 with a feature on ‘Won Beri’ and had to take a break from the industry in 2015.
She currently runs a fashion house called Mo Cheddah.co and counsels young girls through her brand.