Comedian Teju Babyface has said that his colleague Tee-A inspired him to abandon acting for comedy.
The 45-year-old said in a recent interview with QEDNG publisher Olumide Iyanda that after appearing in a couple of movies he decided to switch to comedy when he saw Tee-A doing well for himself in comedy.
“After all of that, I said to myself ‘I want to try comedy now,’ primarily because Tee-A was in Theatre 15 too and Tee-A started his comedy about the time I started acting, he started earlier but about the same time because he was one year ahead of me in UNILAG,” he said.
“So while I had gone off to do Diamond Ring and all that, he had gone off to be with Ali Baba. And so when we seemed to return after the turn of the seasons Tee-A returned with a car and money and he moved out of the hall and went to get a boy’s quarters which was the pinnacle of big boy living in the University of Lagos. And I didn’t have money, I didn’t have anything. So I said ‘It’s this comedy that I want to do.'”
Speaking on his foray into comedy, Teju Babyface said Kayode Peters of Theatre 15 introdued him to Basorge Tariah.
“It was Basorge that formed the foundation of my entire comedy career,” he said.
The talk show host revealed he worked with Julius Agwu on Moonlight, adding that Julius had also seen him at Theatre 15 and liked him.
He added that with the help of Basorge and Julius he featured in Night of A Thousand Laughs where he met Basketmouth.
Teju Babyface said he met Ali Baba at a show organised by Basketmouth in Benin City.
“So when Ali saw me there Basketmouth introduced me to Ali and that’s how Basketmouth and I started to work with Ali. I essentially graduated from the school of Basorge to the school of Ali and when I graduated from the school of Ali and I was now a full-blown comedian I moved not into the school of Tee-A but into the company of Tee-A,” he said.
