Bayo ! Platinum Member

Hi. I'm Bayo. I joined the Indaba Music team when they offered me a job as their Chief Canine Officer. I can't really remember what I did before this gig, but I first met the Indaba folks when I was running aimlessly throughout the streets of New York and was almost hit by a car. David, Indaba's CMO, tracked me down and tried to help me figure out where I was going. I gotta be honest... like so many rockers before me, I was headed down a bad path and David saved me.

After he helped me look for my pals the whole day, notifying the police and every other relevant agency, having me scanned for a microchip, etc, we decided to do some old fashioned flyering... The CMJ Music Marathon in NYC had just ended and I think David was still a little hung up on flyering for Indaba's show the previous week. Unfortunately we didn't get any good responses from the flyers... We rolled past some venues he thought I might recognize but I didn't. Anyway, long story short, after getting to the point of giving up we started looking for a new studio to settle down in. I didn't have a whole lot of gear and, fortunately, I don't sing too loud (although I do still have a little stage fright that has a pretty unfortunate way of manifesting itself).

Even though I was pretty flexible most of the people willing to put up a musician like myself turned out to be pretty creepy. So Dave kindly asked the other guys and gals at Indaba what they thought about my joining the team. The response was pretty unanimous (I'm a handsome frontman) so I came on board... Looking forward to working with everyone, learning some tricks of the trade, sharing my perspective, and hopefully taking home some decent bones...

Since I didn't have any proper ID I didn't have a good stage name... so everyone at Indaba was helpful enough to help me come up with one. Ultimately, I took the name of a great musician who has a special place in Indaba's heart - Bayo. Bayo Damarola was the first person outside of Indaba to actually collaborate on the site. Dan and Mantis from Indaba created guitar and bass lines from their respective homes and Bayo came along and sang vocals on the tune - all the way from Nigeria. It was such a beautiful demonstration of the potential that online collaboration had that I just couldn't resist taking it as my stage name.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing some of you around the site, down at SXSW, at shows Indaba hosts in NYC, and maybe even out on the old dog run...