Wonder-kid Ozzy Bosco and Mum Tells Their Success Story

Seven-year-old Oziomachukwu Favour Mojekwu (popularly known as Ozzy Bosco Wonderkid), has achieved an unbeatable record in the Africa’s entertainment industry. He is currently making his way into the Guinness Book of World Records for his incredible strides in Africa music industry. He and his mother, Chief Elizabeth Nonye Mojekwu, bare it all to NEWTON-RAY UKWUOMA in this interview.

As a mother, how would you describe Ozzy Bosco?
He is a multi-talented, vibrant, intelligent and kind child. Ozzy Bosco is versatile. We call him a teacher’s teacher. Just mention a subject once to him and he would tell you more about it than you think he knows.

Do you think that showbiz is right for him?
People ask me this question and I tell them that it is just like me saying why did you allow your child to play football? It has its own risks. Why do you allow your child to be a pilot? Every business in this world has its own risk. So, when a child is young, you catch him or her young. I mean teach them the way of the Lord.

We are also packaging this boy to be religious and to be very kind. When you do what you are supposed to do as a parent, you leave the rest for God. It is the Almighty God that puts him where he is in the first place; that put so much talent in one single child. I have no doubt He will see him through in his career. More....

At what age did you begin to notice signs of his talent?
Even at three months, I could tell there was something different about him. So many children have passed through me and I saw these children as they grew up. But at three months, I could tell that Ozzy Bosco would be an entertainer. What I did not know at that point was the magnitude of his talent. I didn’t know he was going to turn out like this. I have been monitoring him from three months. We noticed that there was something special about him when it comes to dancing and singing. Then, when an aeroplane passed, and we were all sitting outside relaxing, he would start dancing to the sound of the aeroplane. If you dropped something on the floor, he would begin to follow the sound pattern of the object. We noticed the “swag”.

The swag has been there way back. We love singing and dancing in this family. Even as small as he was then, if music came on, he tried to move even before he started sitting down properly.

So, we were watching him until he became four. I saw on television an advertisment requesting that schools, groups and individuals should register their wards for Kids Got Talent competition. The first time I saw it, I just ignored it because he didn’t have a song. We hadn’t taught him anything apart from the usual dancing in my bedroom. Then two days after, I saw it again, then I sent someone to buy the form in the bank and then I registered him.

All I did was to sit him down in my room, away from his two siblings, and taught him how to come up on stage, and Ozzy Bosco just picked it. You just need to tell him something once, he would do it more than you taught him.

Then I wrote him this song (sings) and Ozzy Bosco told me he needed a beat for it. So, we got someone to do a beat that would rhyme with the song. Ozzy Bosco repeated it three times and danced to it three times. When at MUSON Centre, he was called upon, he was spotted there and he got a standing ovation even before his performance and Ozzy Bosco, as small as four years, stood in between two tall 15-year-old girls to receive the trophy as The Most Entertaining Kid of the Evening. It was awesome.

He has featured Terry G, Lambogini, Olamide, Flavour, Nabania, M.I, and Midnight Crew in the gospel song he just did which he has not released yet. He featured Tee Mac. Some people can’t believe that an African child of that age can do what Ozzy Bosco is doing. Believe it or not, Ozzy Bosco at seven has done 128 properly recorded awesome stage performances; and this does not include all the small entertainment he has done for friends and schoolmates on their birthdays. He has also won 16 awards. It is from the strength of these performances that we are putting him up for Guinness Book of World Records that a child who is a part-time entertainer (because he is in a full-time school) has done 128 performances in two years and four months.

How do you manage his educational side of life?
This family invests so much in classroom education. I don’t joke with education. I believe whatever you are doing (or you want to do), get proper education and the rest shall be added unto you. It is like a song I sing to all my children, nephews and younger ones all the time: ‘Try’. Sometimes some of them find it difficult to adhere to because everybody is not the same. Teach Ozzy Bosco once and he is good to go. Not everybody can be like Ozzy Bosco. Some of them, if they have something going on by the side, they want to drop out. It’s normal; but I always tell them to try and go to school even if they are not first in the class, because it helps you to be whatever you want to be faster and better.

So, educationally, we don’t joke with it here. (Ozzy Bosco) has a private tutor who has been with him for almost four years now. They have two tutors; one tutors his siblings because they are in the same class and the other tutors Ozzy separately. Before they come back from school, they (teachers) are waiting in the house. If we are going on tour, his home tutor follows us because at any given chance, he has to read and do his homework. And we usually tell him that whatever you are doing, you must merge it with education. He knows that already, and he knows he has to come out tops in the class. We told him if he is not doing well in school, we’ll stop him.

Does he do more of the dance than singing?
He does both. I would say equal. That is what makes him different. That was what made Michael Jackson different. Of course, Ozzy Bosco loves to dance, so we made sure he does the two.

Who does the writing of the songs?
I would say the whole team – the family. His first song, Super Star, was actually written by him, and that is the name of his album coming soon.

No one could believe that a boy of seven years can collaborate with M.I, Flavour and the rest.
If he wasn’t doing well, they would not have collaborated with him. They respect him and everybody we called answered and we have not got any rejection.

Lambogini that did his first song was all over the place on the day of the shoot. The video of Ozzy Bosco featuring Olamide is out. We are about to release the video of his MI collaboration.

How do you combine your career with managing Ozzy?
I must tell you, my other areas of interest are kind of suffering but I don’t mind. When you train a child, you train a nation. A lot of kids are coming under him. Do you know he has eight dancers? Every weekend is like they are staying here. One of them came the other day and said she wanted her child to be living here because she thinks I’m a better mother. But I told her not to say that.

You were sure he was going to win?
I wasn’t sure, though I think the video with Olamide is good. But in a competition, anything can happen. Four of the other kids that competed with him are based in London and they had good videos too. But the result was in Ozzy Bosco’s favour at the end of the day. The voting was electronic. People voted for him from various parts of the world. We woke up one morning to see 21 votes from Romania. I was surprised. I didn’t know his song had gone international.

What is Ozzy Bosco doing presently?
He just released a gospel song, which he collaborated with the Midnight Crew, and Ozzy Bosco is preparing for his album launch. Any moment from now, Ozzy Bosco Kiddies TV Show will hit the screen and we are putting him up for the Guinness Book of World Records. He just got a chieftaincy title called Omenawata Igbo. On the day of this chieftaincy, the stadium was full because Dame Patience Jonathan also had a title that day, but her entourage took it for her because she was in Israel. Bamanga Tukur was also there with his wife and after him was Ozzy Bosco and many others followed and after it all, Tukur lifted Ozzy up to the world and said ‘the young shall grow’. That was a climax for us that day.

Before you became Ozzy’s manager, how was life?
Life was good and busy.

[Ozzy Bosco comes in.]
What do you like about your mum?
Oh mummy, I love you. You are the best mum in the world. You have got a cute baby.

How do you feel when you are on stage?
I feel good when I am on stage. It is all I want to do.

What do you want to be?
I want to be a musician.

You’re the youngest titled person in Nigeria. How do you feel?
I feel good.

How did you feel when you met Governor Peter Obi?
I felt great and awesome.

How do you feel being friends with great people?
I love it. I love them too.