It took Chocolate City Entertainment artiste, Panshak ‘Ice Prince’ Zamani, just one single, O Le Ku, to win an unprecedented fandom and followership across Nigeria and the world.
It also took a painful incident, the death of his mother last May, to realise how much he is loved and respected by his contemporaries, industry stakeholders and some of Nigeria’s political leaders. “The outpouring of love was something I never expected at all. People, names I had never heard, would just call me and say I am Senator so and so or Minister of this and that, to commiserate with me and ask what they could do for me. Though I was grieving, I realised that my music has indeed touched a lot of people and that I was no longer the anonymous young man that came from Jos a few years ago, squatting in Djinee’s (R n B artiste) house and not sure when the musical breakthrough would come,”
The realisation, winner of the 2009 Hennessey Artistry says further, made him resolve to work himself thin to produce a debut album that would herald him to the comity of not just Nigeria’s, but the world’s greatest artistes, and by so doing, reciprocate all the love he has been buffeted with since the release of his groundbreaking single, O Le Ku.
The song has won an enviable number of awards, and established the Plateau State native as a bona fide music star. Little wonder, his debut album is entitled Everybody Loves Ice Prince or E.L.I for short. A 15-tracker, E.L.I, Ice Prince says, is wholly produced by his label mate, Jesse Jags. “Everybody Loves Ice Prince is a fusion of many genres; hip hop, R n B, Afro beat, dancehall and raga. I don’t want to be seen as just a rapper; in fact, I love singing more than rapping.
You would see this side of me in the album. I stretched my versatility to the limit for this because my fans don’t deserve any less. There are also must-listen collaborations with Tuface Idibia, MI, Samklef and some others that I won’t mention now.”
Billed for release next week, the album would be launched at a concert holding Sunday, October 9, at the Expo Hall of Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. The E.L.I concert, put together by Chocolate City in partnership with Core Media, Conceptshot Nigeria Limited and Pearl Entertainment, would feature his major collaborators, the Chocolate Boys; MI, Jesse Jags, Brymo; Wizkid, D’Prince and Samklef among others.
Primed to be the biggest musical concert to happen in Nigeria for a long time to come, Ice Prince avers that he is working with the best team of professionals in different areas to make this a reality, make the album a best seller and make everybody love him even more.
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