Charles Novia criticizes Tonto Dike's songs

Am sure by now most of you must have listened to the new singles released by Nollywood actress, Tonto Dike. Well people certainly aired their different views on Twitter and recently Charles Novia, MD/CEO of November Productions had his own view on his Facebook page. Here it is: 

TONTO'S TERRIBLE TREMOLO: I have restrained myself for a couple of years from commenting on Tonto Dike's career after my last comments about her role in the soft porn movie she acted in two years back, were badly taken by her and she went on twitter to hurl infantile insults on my person with expletives and uncomplimentary remarks. My reaction to such then was just a dignified silence. After all, 

I had already spoken on her stunted talent as an up and coming actress and further comments on her incensed tweets were unnecessary. 

Her manager then, a cool headed lady named Emem, even called me apologizing over Tonto's insult. 'Oga, nor vex. Please. She is your daughter. Forgive her'. My reply to Emem was a subtle, 'I'm not in any way angry. Only amused' and I left it at that. Generally, I'm known in my industry to be very blunt. As a person, I am. I don't have apologies for that. Saying things as they are defines my personality. It may also be a flaw where most people are concerned but I don't give a hoot. Didn't Jesus say that 'the truth will set you free?'. I do not see any reason why white should be termed red when it's very obvious that its white! 

Our Nigerian socio-political arena thrives on psychophancy and that trait has permeated into our socio-cultural life. Artistes and wanna-bes want their egos massaged by fawning fans whose loyalty is as fickle as fura di nunu. I do not live in such a world. I am very true to myself, my art, my calling and my environment. When I speak out about something, someone or my society, I do so with a sense of developmental constructivism for such and not fatal destructivism. 


But it's hard for people to take the truth in my industry. I should point out here that I'm also hard on myself too. I'm my worst critic, if I have to be. That's how self-development works. All through the past few hours, the social media networks have been abuzz with the new singles of actress, Tonto Dike. She seems to have joined the actors of her ilk who have the moonlighting itch to delve into singing. While no one can stop such an ambition by those artistes, I do think those who surround such artistes are their worst enemies if they can't tell them the truth about leaving their sometimes doubtful day job. 

Well, I will! I listened to Miss Dike's two singles a few minutes ago and my initial speechlessness morphed to a nagging laughter and then subsided into a befuddled anguish. I'm a music label owner (November Records) and have produced and Executive Produced acts like Majek Fashek, Terry tha Rapman, Zubby Enebeli etc. I know much about music and the slant of commercial music. But after listening to Miss Dike's songs, I'm inclined to align with the majorly negative comments about them on cyberspace. 

Ah-ah! Whoever produced her knew she has a bad voice for singing and masked our listening torture with the Autotune effect. But even the Autotune rejected any attempt to make a bad voice worse and Miss Dike came out sounding like she was in mid-stream orgasm instead of singing! Her anguished tremolos would have been better reserved for a horror movie sound effect than an attempt at joining the revered profession of music. If Omotola got away with her last two terrible attempts at singing, it was because Omotola is a fantastic actress and her fans could forgive her musical failings after backtracking her body of work in Nollywood. 

With Tonto, I can't say much either for her acting depth. She's a one-dimensional actress in my opinion, who mistakes notoriety for fame. She needs more training in acting and this I say with all sense of professionalism as a movie Director. She might achieve greater heights in acting if she trains more. But she has no heights to achieve in singing. Only a downward plunge, the stuff bad endings in movies are made of. 

And Tonto replies: