Chiori Paul Cole@OSSYACHIEVAS
What many people don’t know is that between 2007 and 2009, Solid Star recorded a lot of songs, but as the A&R and CEO of the label, I knew something was still missing. The talent was obvious, the vocals were amazing, but there was a particular spark I was searching for that I hadn’t heard yet in any of the records.
One day, I called him and said, “Look, I don’t want another fast-tempo song. I need something different. Give me a mid-tempo record, something with a bounce, something emotional. Just write a proper love song.”
He agreed and went to work on it. After a while, he came back and said, “I’ve written the love song. Do you want to hear it?” I told him yes immediately.
Around that same period, we were at Comfort Suites in Festac, and luckily for us, the late legendary producer OJB Jezreel was there that night working with 2Baba. I introduced Solid Star to OJB and told him we really wanted to work with him. OJB welcomed the idea and asked us to come back in a few days.
When we got to the appointment, OJB said he wanted to hear the song first.Solidstar sang the song for him, and almost instantly he caught the vision. Within less than 40 minutes, OJB had already created the beat, Solid Star had voiced the track, and the foundation of One in a Million was born.
After the recording, OJB looked at me and said something I would never forget: “If you can get 2Face on this song, it will be massive. This sounds like something he would naturally jump on.”
That advice changed everything.
As soon as I got back to Festac, I took the song to 2Baba. Before he even traveled to Abuja for his 10-year anniversary celebration, he was already vibing heavily to the song. By the time he got to Abuja, he knew the lyrics almost word for word. He told me he already had ideas for what he wanted to add to the record.
Then he said something that became another major turning point in Solid Star’s career: “If you don’t mind, bring Solidstar to Abuja to perform.”
That Abuja event — 2Face’s 10-year anniversary — became Solid Star’s very first major stage performance.
After they returned from Abuja, 2Face called me again and said, “Bring Solo to the house. I want to record my verse.” And that was how the legendary collaboration finally came together.
Once the audio was done, I approached Clarence Peters with the song. He listened carefully and immediately said he had a strong visual concept for it. He suggested we travel all the way to Erin Ijesha water falls for the shoot and also involve legendary photographer Kelechi Amadi-Obi in the creative process.
Everything sounded incredible — until he gave me the budget. It was a seven-figure production cost, which at that time was a huge risk for us as a growing label. I took the proposal back to my directors and explained everything to them. After deliberating, we all agreed on one thing: “Let’s give it a shot.”
And that was how we traveled toOsun state and shot the iconic One in a Million video.
On another note, I’ll still tell the full story of how I eventually got 2Baba to personally appear in that video.
