“My Record Label Made Me Act Like A Madman To Win Public Sympathy” — Shina Peters Opens Up

Veteran Afro-Juju legend, Sir Shina Peters, has revealed a shocking strategy once used by his record label to repair his public image after his controversial exit from Prince Adekunle’s band.

According to Ireporter Online, the celebrated musician disclosed that he was deliberately styled and paraded as a mentally unstable person to evoke public sympathy and change negative public perception about him.

Speaking on The Honest Bunch podcast, the ‘Ace’ crooner recounted the backlash he faced after leaving Adekunle’s band, as many accused him of abandoning his mentor out of greed. In an effort to counter the growing criticism, his record label boss, Tunde Savage—who also served as marketing director at the Daily Times—devised a publicity stunt with the help of editors from Concord Newspapers and Evening Times.

Shina Peters explained that his boss instructed him to braid his hair and leave it unkempt for three days, tear up some old clothes, and appear in public looking disheveled. “After three days, they loosened my hair but didn’t comb it. I wore the torn clothes and was taken to Oyingbo Market to buy ewedu. Unknown to me, they were secretly capturing the entire scene on camera,” he said.

The dramatization, he continued, extended to Badagry, where construction giant Julius Berger was building an overhead bridge. There, he was told to act like a madman in public, eating and behaving erratically while being filmed.

“All of it was a calculated move to make the public feel sorry for me and shift the narrative after I left Prince Adekunle,” Peters revealed. “People were angry and didn’t understand my decision, so the gimmick was meant to soften their hearts.”

The veteran artist described the incident as one of the most unconventional publicity stunts in his career, admitting that it ultimately succeeded in reshaping how the public perceived him.