Ice Artquake has his real name as Tomomewo Olakunle. He is a famous Nigerian musician and songwriter known for his contributions to the Afrobeat and Afro-pop music genres and an artiste behind the famous ‘Alanta.’
Ice Artquake was born in Ilaje, Ondo State. Date and year of his birth are however not known. He is not too tall and not too short young energetic man, with a huge stature that often laced with colourful dresses and shoes.
He had his OND in Statistics from Kwara Polytechnic and later bagged Higher National Diploma in Business Administration from Polytechnic, Ibadan. He has an intimidating presence that often points him out as a showbiz man.
Ice Artquake’s Music Career
Ice Artquake kick-started his musical talent to his undergraduate days at Kwara State Polytechnic, where he teamed up with friends of like minds to start making music. “I used to be in statistic class while he was in Kwara State Polytechnic.
He began his music career professionally in 1999, when he got into a studio and did the first professional song that was his first recording ‘Abulelawa’. The song was a popular one and shot him to limelight in the music industry.
He stated, “It was during my Industrial Training that I began to work on my craft, trying to see how more I can get professional on music”.
He came into limelight in the Nigerian entertainment industry in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s alongside Tony Tetula.
According to the popular music star, he moved from “…N3,000 per show to big money”. He added that he had to contend with schooling and music at the time, until he heard that Tony Tetula had joined a group called Remedies.
So, having a start off, Ice Artquake revealed that it was a motivation for him and, at the same time, a challenge that he needed to wake up from sleep and try to do something of his own.
This marked the beginning of Ice Artquake’s creativity and ingenuity and his craft constantly stood him out among the crowd as one taken a sabbatical from music to pursue other profitable interests.
The music star also revealed in an interview that music hasn’t seen the last of him as he planned to release an album, ‘Coat of Many Colours’, a man who moved from zero to becoming a hero in the entertainment where he rocked for more than a decade.
Ice K is one of the few talented artistes that revolutionaries the Nigerian music industry back then with his first album, ‘Never Ending,’ which was followed by ‘You Must Dance’ between 2003 and 2004.
From being an amateur on stage, Ice K’s self-discovery moment in the art emanated shortly after his National Diploma in 1996. That moment was also significant as what he once embraced as a pastime became his means of livelihood, which later threw him up on the global stage.
He added, “We were thriving, the song was moving, and then we heard from Star FM that one Femi Davies was looking for us. There was no phone. There was no way to reach him. You have to get to these places before you get this information, and they said Corporate Pictures wanted to sign us. That was how we got our first record deal by Corporate Picture.
In 2001, he and his team mates released their first album titled, ‘Never Ending,’ moved on to another record label called ‘Little Fish.’ It was at Little Fish that they did their song, ‘You Must Dance’.
He released another song, ‘Konko Jabele,’ featuring Pasuma. He had a couple of tracks on the album, coupled with other videos of shows, but not without challenges and setbacks.
According to Ice Artquake, “After the record label got involved in the fire, the business became very tough. I was going to have my first travel to the United Kingdom in 2006. It was a family visit, but then it didn’t augur well with the record label. Maybe they didn’t like the idea. At that point, we began having some problems with the record label. By the time I travelled out and came back, we were out of the record label. So we started pushing ourselves. When we started with AQ Multi Media, that is the name of the company that we came up with. By then, we began to do film production, more like a music video. We did less of hip hop. We were doing more of standardising Fuji. We did Ijo fuji for Adewale Ayuba, also did Melo shoot video for Sir Shina Peters, then we also helped a couple of colleagues.”
In 2009, the music star revealed that he came up with a song which was a huge success, ‘Alanta’. The song was a big break and a lot of things changed, attention came, we made a lot of impacts, played a lot of shows both locally and internationally.
Ice Artquake’s journey with his partners in music seems paved with gold until there was a discordant tune, and he had to part ways in 2017. After their eventual end, he decided to go solo.
He started off in 2017 towards the end and he announced the breakup of the group.
In 2018, he released his first single in 2018. Ice Artquake has since done a couple of singles including ‘Abule Lawa,’ ‘Samagbadun,’ and many more. But it was his hit song, ‘Alanta,’ that actually shot Ice Artquake to prominence.
Aside music, Ice Artquake is also a real estate mogul. “Well, the time I decided to slow down was timely. And then I started plugging into other businesses, and then I began to make headway. I found out that I had to diversify, and then some of those things were falling in line,” he said.
His Marital Life
Ice Artquake is happily married to his lovely wife, Adenike Mojisola, who coincidentally is the younger sister of Sola Eleyele, the popular artiste, who became a soothing balm shortly after a failed relationship in 2010 and moved into USA with his family.
“It was a perfect time to have my wife move to the USA. I started my USA business in 2010. And then, my wife also began her studies at the university. That was how I started my own life and built my tentacles right there. And then came back to Nigeria, we continued Artquake, and then I was a bit distracted with business.”
Ice Artquake is indeed a brilliant Nigerian singer and songwriter. He cannot be easily missed in a crowd. He loves life. He loves music and embraces what it takes to get noticed. In his words, “What you see is exactly a reflection of my personality. As an artiste, I might have to do a little bit of packaging, which is expected of me as an artist or an entertainer. My kind of person is simple, but it might not be simple when it comes to dressing. I am someone who dresses to kill, but I have never killed before. I dress to be noticed. That is how I would put it. I love dressing to be noticed, and I also would say that I am very approachable in my simplicity of attitude,” he said while commenting on his appearances.
Ice Artquake’s Net Worth
Ice Artquake has made huge fortune from his music career with an estimated net worth of about $1 million dollars. His major earnings come from music profession, real estate and other profitable business ventures.
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