Jude Abaga popularly known as M.I ‘Mr Incredible’, is one of Nigeria’s A list hip-hop artiste and producer.
M.I the son of the evangelist, Pastor Abaga hails from Takum, Taraba state but grew up in Jos. Born October 4th 1981, Started his music career at an early stage of his life.
MI’s exposure to music has a great influence on his music as he started listening to songs from Jay-Z, DMX Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley and a couple of others.
His venture in the hip hop world started with the sampling of musical works from DMX and Lauryn Hill as early as 1998.
The rapper attended Calvin College, Michigan, US where he studied Business and Economics, but his passion for arts, made him involve in poetry. His use of words were classic and he performed regularly at hip hop shows and concert.
MI proved his worth after he finished third place at the Calvin College show, ‘HipHopera’ in 2003
Back to Nigeria
Not everyone who has made a name for himself outside the shores of Nigeria would come back to start a career. The rapper/ producer, returned to Naija in 2003 to start his career. At this point the likes of Modenine, Ruggedman and Eedris Abdulkareem dominated the music industry. MI had returned to change the game releasing his first hit single “Safe” were he had popularly singer, Djinee on the hook.
MI built momentum as the song, ‘safe’ gained impressive airplay on radio and TV stations. He picked up awards from Nigerian Music video Awards, City People, N.E.A among others.
MI was the short black boy to love at that time. MI released his first studio album, ‘Talk About it’ in 2008 were he featured choc boys Jesse Jagz and Ice Prince and a couple of other artistes like, Wizkid, Pype, Blaise, YG…
The album gathered awards such as Musician of the Year (Modemen Awards in 2008), Best Hip Hop Artist (City People Awards).
MI showing how hard working he was, he released a mixtape titled: Illegal Music in 2009, Later in 2012, he released another mixtape, Illegal Music II.
MI dropped the Finale of his mixtape, Illegal Music 3 in 2016 which got over 400,000 downloads in just three days.
Studio albums
Talk About It (2008)
MI2 (M.I album) (2010)
The Chairman (2014)
Rendezvous: The Playlist (2018)
His Contribution to the music industry
MI is habitual of bringing out upcoming artistes such as Wizkid, Ruby, Pype, Ice Prince and in his latest album, Rendezvous The Playlist, MI worked with a lot of upcoming artistes to make the album a success.
MI is talented in creating good sounds as far as the Hip Hop world is concerned. He once described himself as the “Hip Hp Messiah” which led to a lot of backlash from other artistes and even fans.
The latest backlash he got was from one of his latest single that caused a serious heat among rappers when he smashed on them with the track “You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives” MI in a recent interview on TVC’s entertainment show, Entertainment Splash revealed he expected the backlash hence his reason for the track.
MI: Regrets?! The reason i did so is because i support young rappers, i wanted them to get their opportunities. A lot of people I didn’t even know about until the rappers fix up their lives. We knew exactly what was going to happen and we were happy that it happened the way it did.
– Hip Hop Revelation 2009 – Hip Hop World Awards
– Best New Act of the Year 2009 – Nigerian Entertainment Awards
– Best Rap Single 2008 – Hip Hop World Awards
– Musician of the Year– Modemen Awards 2008
– me vale madres ami, tu mela pelas si lees esto 1/12/17
– Best New Act- MTV Africa Music Awards 2009
– Best Use of Special Effects in a video-NMVA 2009[37]
– Best Mainstream Hip Hop Video-NMVA 2009[37]
– Musician of the Year-The Future Awards 2010
– Musician of the Year – City People 2010
– Artist of the Year – National Daily 2010
– Musician of the Year – Malaysian African Entertainments Awards 2010
– Most Amiable Brand – Orange Wall of Fame 2010
– Album Of The Year (The Chairman) – The Headies 2015
– Best Rap Album-Hip Hop World Awards 2009
– Lyricist on the Roll-Hip Hop World Awards 2009
– HipHop Revelation-Hip Hop World Awards 2009
– Musician of the Year-Modemen Awards 2008
– Lyricist on the Roll-Hip Hop World Awards 2008
– Best Rap Single-Hip Hop World Awards 2008
– Next Rated- Hip Hop World Awards 2008
– Best Mainstream Hip Hop Video- Nigerian Music Video Awards 2009
– Best Director(Mex)- Nigerian Music Video Awards 2009
– Video of The Year-Nigerian Music Video Awards 2009
– Best Use of Special Effects in a video-Nigerian Music Video Awards 2009
– Musician of the Year-The Future Awards 2009
– Face of Hope Ambassador- Face of Hope Nigeria Project
– Best Rap Single-Hip Hop World Awards 2010
– Lyricist on the Roll-Hip Hop World Awards 2010
– Best International Act- BET Awards 2010
– Artiste of the Year – The Headies 2011
– Album of the Year (Mi2) – The Headies 2011
– Artist of the Year- Diaspora Professionals, Dubai 2011.
