Dapo Torimiro is a platinum-selling songwriter, producer, composer, accomplished pianists, instrumentalist, Yamaha-endorsed artist, and singer. Dapo was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. It was Dapo’s songwriting and producing skills that got the attention of an American based record label, DKG Music. Dapo’s four-member R&B/Gospel group, Kush, was signed to the label and flown to London and eventually, Los Angeles, to record their debut album, The experience. While the album experienced popularity in Nigeria, the label closed their doors before they released the album in the U.S.
Soon after leaving the label, Dapo was sought after by the industry’s top-notch artists to exhibit his skills as a touring and studio musician, as well as to score various television and film projects. In 2006, Lauryn Hill selected the Nigerian-born musician to tour with her as her keyboardist for several months, and Dapo also had the opportunity to tour with Lalah Hathaway and to perform with the legendary Stevie Wonder. Leaving his role as a touring musician behind, Dapo enthusiastically embraced the realization of his ultimate goal: songwriting and producing for major artists.
Dapo’s first break was placing the song “Quickly” on five-time Grammy winner John Legend’s third studio album, Evolver, which was released in Fall of 2008. Featuring multi-platinum-selling artist Brandy, Quickly received early industry buzz as not only inspired, sleek duet featuring R&B/pop music’s leading artists, but also as one of the album’s stand-out gems. Later in the Fall of 2008, Torimiro also enjoyed credit for other tracks, including “Running” on David Archuleta’s self-titled debut album (November 11, 208) – his first since becoming runner-up on American Idol in June 2008 – and “Torn Down” form Brandy’s highly-anticipated album, Human (December 9, 2008), which she describes as her most personal album to date.
Feedback from the media was again clearly supportive of Dapo’s song production for his work in the ABC movie, “A Christmas At Water’s Edge.” Dapo co-wrote and produced the track “Bigger” on Canadian singer Justin Bieber’s first part of his two-part debut studio album, My World, which was released on November 17, 2009, via Island Records. In less than one month of release, the first part of the album was certified Gold in the United States, and in less than two months (January 8, 2010), it was certified Platinum in the United States, selling over one million copies.
Since signing an exclusive worldwide co-publishing agreement with Walk Disney Music Publishing in 2009, Dapo has been writing for a variety of Disney television and film projects. Dapo wrote and produced a song for the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, “Fire”, which was the third single released to radio from the soundtrack.
Another Disney project had Dapo channeling his jazz roots as he wrote and produced songs for two The Princess and the Frog-inspired cds: Tiana & Her Princess Friends and Bayou Boogie. In Tiana and Friends, Dapo produced, “Down in New Orleans”, performed by Tony Award-winning actress, Anika Noni Rose, and written by Academy Award-winning composed Randy Newman. In the second CD, Bayou Boogie, Dapo wrote and produced two songs.
Dapo was named “International Producer of the Year” at the 2009 Nigeria Entertainment Awards (NEA) held at Howard University in Washington D.C.
