1st August, 2014
Funsho Arogundade
Rodney Brown Edemhanria, also known as ‘Rodney the Monster’ emerged the winner of the first season of the street music talents hunt competition, Naija Street Champ.
Rodney, 25, representing Ikeja zone of the competition was adjudged the best of the last standing four contestants that made it to the Grand Finale concert held on 26 July at the Eko FM Hall, LTV Studios, Agidingbi, Ikeja Lagos.
On the night a large crowd of supporters stormed the venue of the concert to support their favourite talent.
The first round of performance saw the elimination of Sulaimon Idris (Dabreez) – one of the competition’s revelations and strong contenders since audition from the Surulere zone which he represented. He was rewarded with a consolatory cash prize of N100,000 only.
To decide who will go home with the N1million cash prize and the three-year music recording contract, the last three contestants, Shanuolu Adesola (Sholz), Rodney Brown Edemhanria (Rodney) and the only lady standing Abimbola Olugbenga (Raptitude) performed twice on stage thrilling the ever excited crowd with their songs on beats produced by Terry G and ID Cabassa.
Impressed with their performances but unable to decide, the panel of Judges, Terry G, ID Cabassa and D’Tunes then asked the three contestants undergo another round of freestyle performance.
At the end of the thrilling freestyle performance, the Judges unanimously declared Rodney as the winner of the season 1 of Naija Street Champ. They also had kind words for the two other contestants promising to help them achieve greatness in their career.
D’Tunes announced a gift of N300,000 each to the other two contestants.
Rodney, the new champ, told P.M.NEWS Entertainment Cafe that he was very excited to have won the competition. He went ahead to congratulate his co-finalists for their wonderful performances, courage and showmanship, and noted that he will be willing to work with them in the future.
Oladehinde Fajana, the Project Manager, expressed satisfaction with the first edition of the project which he described as a huge success and said subsequent seasons will be more robust.
He used the medium to call on brand custodians to take the opportunity of the project to reach their target especially the Youth market.