My mother checked if my virginity was intact till I married – Tope Alabi

Popular Nigerian gospel singer,Tope Alabi, can be considered as one of the singer in the gospel music genre that truly inspires their listeners through their Spirit-filled songs.

The gospel singer opened up in a new interview with the Punch that she kept her virginity until marriage and her mother made sure she checked her regularly to confirm this.Tope Alabi in the interview spoke about her childhood, career, marriage, motherhood and other issues.

She was asked about her recent Album launch, Yes and Amen and what is was all about:

The album is full of wholesome praise to God; there are no side attractions. God told me about three years ago that I should make an album that would contain only praise and worship. There are 11 tracks in all. I worked on the album for about two years. God usually gives me the titles for my albums, and also the time to release them.

On if she got any support from her mother when she ventured into music:

Yes, she did because she was also a singer. She always sang around the house. She believed that one didn’t have to be immoral simply because she is a singer. Every other member of my family was not pleased with my music career but my mother never took offence. She taught me that a female shouldn’t be too close to men.

For example, I was never bathed at the same time with my male siblings. My mother used to check if my virginity was intact every three months interval before I got married; especially whenever I returned from movie locations.

When I newly got married to my husband, we went to the National Theatre in Lagos to watch a movie and actors like Yinka Quadri, Ebun Oloyede, among others were there. When they saw my husband, they congratulated him and told him that he had chosen a good and exemplary wife. That made my husband quite happy. My mum was very strict and she never spared the rod. She also showed me a lot of motherly love.

Tope Alabi was known in her early days as a major sound track singer for most Nollywood movies in the Yoruba genre. She spoke on how it all started:

I started my entertainment career as an actress and back then, they didn’t do personalised soundtracks for movies. One day, one of my colleagues, Adio Majesta, said I should be able to compose songs for movies. He told me the title of the movie and that was how I started making soundtracks for movies. He believed I could do it because I always sang whenever we were on location and sometimes, I used the incident happening at that particular time to compose songs.

She was asked if any of her children is following in her footsteps:

Yes. My first daughter, Ayomikun, is currently studying music in the university. She often tells me a lot of things about the rudiments and intricacies of music. I actually wanted her to study medicine but she chose music. She writes good lyrics and I respect her for that.