In 2021, as the world was adjusting to the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ijeoma Princess\u00a0 Ikokwu, who studied law at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Nigeria, took a leap of faith that would change the trajectory of her career for good. Stretching back to her childhood, she had always loved music, particularly how this art form provided musicians with a canvas for expressing their creativity. Now her love for music had blossomed into an interest in live music production and she longed to give back to her alma mater, through a music show. Though she was familiar with the entertainment world, she had never pulled off anything quite like this: her own event. Weighing the risks, and hurdles attendant with an event of that nature, she took a leap of faith, trusting her intuition and team of friends to bring the show, titled <\/span>Rebirth<\/span><\/i>, to fruition. Even though they had set their minds on a more conservative figure, they ended up selling well over 500 tickets. And with that, her journey into the world of grassroots live music production began.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Today, she straddles a career as an entertainment lawyer with grassroots live music events curation. Days before Christmas last year we spoke over Google Meet. Donning a black shirt and large headphones, she swirled gently in an office chair and flashed a warm smile. \u201cSorry I\u2019m still at the office, there might be background noises or a member of staff might need something in the office, and they might come in,\u201d she informed me with a smile as we eased into the conversation. Behind her, on the cream wall of the office space, was a board with neat rows of notes acting as an interesting composition element.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Our conversation traversed a range of topics, most notably her work in galvanizing grassroots live music events throughout her company Curated By The Entertainment Jury. In September last year, under the aegis of her company, she curated <\/span>Intersection: Gidi Meets London<\/span><\/i>, a music event bringing together African artists in diaspora and UK-based artists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This conversation<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>transcribed<\/span><\/i> below, has been edited lightly for clarity\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n How are you feeling today?<\/b><\/p>\n I think I\u2019m fine, I\u2019m okay. Honestly, work has been stressful, but other than that, I\u2019m doing exceptionally well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You seem to be caught up in a bit of work. Do you mind sharing what you\u2019re working on?<\/b><\/p>\n So there\u2019s an event I\u2019m trying to pull together in February. And it\u2019s taking a lot of my time. There\u2019s no break for people like us who do events. It\u2019s always meetings. It\u2019s always having to plan. That\u2019s what\u2019s taking up my time. So I\u2019m going to be working through the holidays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That sounds like a lot. Can you walk me through how you got into grassroots live music curation and event production?<\/b><\/p>\n So, there is a bit of a backstory but I started in 2021. I did the first show with my team, a concert called <\/span>Rebirth,<\/span><\/i> and it really was a way to give back to my alma mater, Olabisi Onabanjo University. My friends and I also wanted to create a concert to introduce the entertainment company that we worked for at that time.\u00a0 In hindsight, we took a major risk because we sold out over 500 tickets and when we started planning, we weren\u2019t expecting to even get that number of people in the hall. So it was a risk that we took that paid off and that was how I got into events.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s really impressive. I can imagine the pressure you felt taking that leap of faith.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, it was a lot of pressure. As for stage coordination and production, I got into that by working for (Show Dem Camp\u2019s) <\/span>Palmwine Festival<\/span><\/i>. I worked on the Palmwine Festival in 2021, 2022 as well. So that\u2019s the full story of how I got into stage coordination, production, and all that.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m very curious about how you got into the crew for the PalmWine Festival. Were you contracted because of the work you did on <\/b>Rebirth<\/i><\/b>; how did they make the connection?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I had a work relationship with the manager of Show Dem Camp at the time, Godwin Tom, and he needed people to join the stage management team. That was in 2021. Since then I\u2019ve worked with the team on the Palmwine festival in Lagos in 2022, the Palmwine Festival in London in 2023, No Love in Lagos in 2024; and I\u2019ve just stayed with the team ever since.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Anyone who works in the music industry has some idea, however patchy, of what an event producer or a grassroots music curator does. The mechanics of the job might however appear opaque to a layperson. How would you break down what you do in the capacity of your job to someone outside the music industry?<\/b><\/p>\n I used to think that grassroots live music events curation was just about selecting the artists and putting them on stage to perform for an audience. But when I got into events properly, I found out that it went beyond this. It has a lot to do with organizing, timing, and logistics. It involves caring for the artists, ensuring that the goal you have in mind is shown by the kind of artists that you select for the event, the kind of audience that you appeal to, and the kind of event space. I found out that curation is more than selection. It\u2019s more like creation. It\u2019s like creating a whole idea and ensuring that you are able to sell the idea.\u00a0 So, to a layman, I would explain grassroots live music event curation as a way of connecting artists to an audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I want to press that question a little bit more. What are the things you do, in the capacity of your job, before, during, and after an event?<\/b><\/p>\n Okay, I will start with the example of a live music event I independently funded and curated in September of 2025. It was called <\/span>Intersection: Gidi Meets London<\/span><\/i>. With <\/span>Intersection<\/span><\/i>, the context was that I had seen that several emerging artists who moved from back home (Africa) were so lost in the need to survive that they were not expressing their creativity properly. The goal for me was to give them a space to actually showcase their artistry while also connecting them to UK-based music artists. Before the event I had to research these young African artists who had moved from their home countries because they had to tell the story that I was trying to show the world. So if you look at the lineup for the event, 70 percent of the artists were African. Planning the event also involved logistics and collaboration, because I don\u2019t work in isolation. I believe that collaboration is what makes grassroots live music events interesting. During the event, it was more of following a structure to the latter. And then afterward it was, of course, getting feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n What were some of the hurdles you had to overcome to bring the show to life?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n The biggest hurdle for me was getting people to believe in my vision. I had to reach out to stakeholders to make them believe in the vision that I was trying to create in the UK. After meeting upon meetings, I was able to tell the story I was trying to show the world.<\/span><\/p>\n What exactly about live music production called out to you at the start? You studied law and have a background in entertainment law, so what prompted you to make the jump?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always loved events. Even while studying law I organized events in school. I also volunteered here and there. I think the pull for me is the care I have for artists,\u00a0 the need to see that they\u2019re able to freely express their creativity and not fall prey to exploiters. That\u2019s why, while I work with established artists from time to time, I focus on emerging artists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Having successfully curated <\/b>Intersection: Gidi Meets London<\/i><\/b>, what\u2019s next for you?<\/b><\/p>\n I intend to make it into a monthly industry night open mic event. I have the next one coming up at the end of February or the beginning of March and it\u2019s going to be called <\/span>Intersection Reloaded<\/span><\/i>. One beautiful thing about grassroots live music events is that not only do these events bring artists together, but they also create connections that last.\u00a0 For example, the artists who performed at Intersection were in a group chat, and after the show, they all decided to stay back (in the group),\u00a0 and from that event, I have seen several collaborations between these artists. I believe that the future holds a lot and I\u2019m just here to be an instrument.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source culturecustodian.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2021, as the world was adjusting to the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ijeoma Princess\u00a0 Ikokwu, who studied law at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Nigeria, took a leap of faith that would change the trajectory of her career for good. Stretching back to her childhood, she had always loved music, particularly how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2232760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[431953,431954],"class_list":["post-2232759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-grassroots-live-music-events-curation","tag-ijeoma-ikokwu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/How-Ijeoma-Ikokwu-is-Helping-Spotlight-Emerging-Artists-Through-Grassroots.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2232761,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232759\/revisions\/2232761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2232760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturecustodian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_9352.JPEG.jpg?resize=1007%2C1511&ssl=1\")
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