Music Meets Movie As ‘Lara And The Beat’ Premieres On Sunday

MICHAEL AKINOLA

After so much anticipation, the movie, Lara And The Beat is set to premiere in grand style on Sunday July 8.

The movie will premiere in Lagos in what is poised to be an exciting evening of fabulous fashion, mesmerizing music and much more.

The movie will be breaking a lot of grounds and going where other movies have not gone.

Firstly, though the movie is not a musical, it is music-inspired with its own original songs while working with a vast number of music icons.

The two lead acts (Vector and Seyi Shay) are music superstar and well revered in Africa.

This will be the first time lead characters in a cinema release in Nigeria are musicians.

Seyi Shay’s musical prowess is not in doubt. Born Deborah Oluwaseyi Joshua, she wrote and produced three songs for the soundtrack to Konami’s video game, Crime Life: Gang Wars.

She also wrote “You Will See”, a song that was included on Melanie C’s third studio album, ‘Beautiful Intentions’ in 2005.

She became the lead singer for the now-defunct pop girl group From Above.

The group signed a recording deal with Sony’s Columbia Records and was managed by Mathew Knowles’ (Beyonce’s father and former manager) Music World Entertainment company

Talking about her role Shay says, “I am a drama queen, you obviously know that. Seyi Shay is a drama queen naturally. I lived, breathed and slept Lara Giwa. She’s a typical young lady whom you see in different lights. You see her really rich, you see her very poor, you see her in between, you see her fall in love, you see so many different emotions in her. So I wasn’t really thinking more about those elements per say, I was just thinking more about every girl, every lady, every woman that is going to watch the movie; how they would react in certain circumstances that Lara Giwa was in within the movie. I tried to portray that so that whoever is watching can relate.”

Vector is also not a novice in the musical scene. He was born as Olanrewaju Ogunmefun in Ogun, Nigeria. He is the fourth child out of five siblings.

He formed a duo called “Badder Boiz” in 1999, and they started writing their own songs and went on to perform in many events and shows.

He is the voice behind the Sprite commercial that has aired on most radio stations across Nigeria since 2009.

Vector has worked with prominent names like DJ Xclusive, Timaya, Mavado, Seyi Shay, Wizkid, Ice Prince, 9ice, 2Face Idibia and Oritse Femi to name a few.

He has won numerous awards including the Recognition Award by the 2012 Dynamix Youth Awards and he later went on to scoop the Best Rap Single and Lyricist On The Roll award at the 2015 Headies Awards.

“My experience on the set of Lara And The Beat was an amazing one and I even had to learn how to ride a power bike because of the movie. It was a crash course so I had to learn how to ride the power bike in less than a week,” he says about his experience on set.

The movie, Lara And The Beat is produced by Biola Alabi Media, the producers of the smash hit movie, Banana Island Ghost.

Lara and the Beat stars music superstars and leading Nollywood acts including Somkele, Chioma Akpotha, Chinedu Ikedieze, Uche Jombo, Shaffy Bello, Lala Akindoju, DJ Xclusive, Toni Tones, Deyemi Okanlawon, Demola Adedoyin and many more.

The movie which hits Cinemas nationwide from July 20, is a coming of age movie about the young and beautiful Giwa sisters caught in the center of a financial scandal with their late parents’ Media Empire.

The sisters are forced out of their privileged bubble, and must learn to build their own future – through music and enterprise – to salvage their family’s past.

It promises to be a thrilling delight, especially with the exciting themes explored in the movie including financial literacy, family values, sisterhood, friendship, music, fashion, culture and love.