22nd March, 2024
By Taiwo Okanlawon
Controversial street hop musician, Habeeb Okikiola, popularly known as Portable has revealed he used to be a professional fashion designer before venturing into music.
The 30-year-old spoke on his love for fashion and tailoring in the debut episode of the Brooke Bailey Danfo Series.
Bailey, the Belgian DJ, who flew into Nigeria to interview Portable, was taken on a tour around Sango Ota, Ogun state, the singer’s hometown.
One of the places Portable introduced her to was his fashion designing studio where he said he learnt it before venturing into music.
He said, notwithstanding his popularity, he is still a fashion designer and “combines” the profession with his music career.
“I was trained as a fashion designer. I am still a fashion designer, I am still doing it. That is what I learnt, that was my profession before I ventured into music,” he said.
“Now I combine the both but I am taking the fashion side of things slow and steady. I love fashion designing, even entertainment is connected to fashion in some ways. So when you are doing music, you have to do fashion.”
Portable hit stardom in December 2021 with the release of ‘Zazoo Zeh’, his hit single featuring Olamide and Poco Lee.
He has also produced hit tracks including ‘All Eyes On Me’, ‘Clear Azaman’, ‘Neighbour’ and ‘Ogo Forever’.
In a recent post on TikTok, Portable disclosed that he used to perform at shows as low as two hundred naira before Olamide helped his career.
Portable expressed gratitude to Olamide, while acknowledging him for turning his life around. Portable recently featured the UK rapper Skepta on a song titled Tony Montana.
Tony Montana has unlocked many milestones in the careers of the artists who worked on the project as it earned Portable his first number-one song on the Spotify and Apple Music chart for Nigeria as well as a UK Chart debut.
Skepta and Jae 5 also earned their first number-one spot on the Spotify Top Songs Daily chart for Nigeria with the hit song as well.