“My Biggest Principle in Life is to never look down on Anyone” | King Pexxie, Serialpreneur/ Marketing Executive

 

 

Lekan Bamidele, popularly known as King Pexxie or KP is an entertainment Lawyer, a serial entrepreneur and a Media Personnel.

He is a family-oriented person, who comes from a close-knit family of entrepreneurs and business-oriented people. He is the Last of five children.

KP is a native of Oye, Ekiti state. He is not only book smart but also Street smart. He was born and raised in the Agege area of Lagos State where he would like to describe as the trenches and the origin of his Street credibility and orientation.

Aside from being a fashionable and outgoing person, he is also a lover of God and he never fails to share the love with his Instagram followers once a week. In his words, “I love God so much. Despite all of my imperfections, he still loves me and shows me love. If I can showcase the part of my life where I’m in the club, dancing and having fun, why would I hide the fact that I worship God?”

As a serial entrepreneur, he combines many different ventures all at once; a travel company, a law firm, and a media company. He describes all his works as fulfilling. He understands the value of persistence, however, he is never ashamed to quit. In his words, “people start up things and when it doesn’t work, they are like, “Ah, what will people say? But my approach is, I have tried this, but it didn’t work so I will try something else. I’m never one to be too scared to fail. I go into something with the aim of, “ I want this to work but I also have it in my mind that if it should fail, I would try something else.

Pexxie is a lover of good food, especially indigenous food. His favourite food is Pounded Yam and Egusi soup and the next best thing to that would be Amala, gbegiri and Ewedu soup.

Our conversation which follows below has been slightly edited

YellowLyfe Mag: Tell us a little bit about your background

King Pexxie: I was born and raised in Agege, Lagos state. So that’s where the razz, street part of me comes from. I grew up in Agege till I clocked seven when we moved to Alimosho, another trenches. I love the trenches, I was born and raised there. Though my parents didn’t raise us like we grew up in the trenches, they like to do things the prim and proper way but I’m very glad I grew up in that setting because it has given me the requisite street credibility and street OT that you need to deal with different categories of people. I run a firm here in Lagos called Lekan Bamidele and company, it’s a Law firm where we run startup advisory, business start-up advisory, Consultancy, intellectual property protection and a sum of other things. I also used to act as a Chief Operating Officer at KPMH, a media company that I founded in 2015 and is currently being managed by my friend and business partner, Mariam Giwa. We co-managed a travel company called KP events and tours. However, when Covid hit, we had to suspend it for a while.

YellowLyfe Mag: Asides, from being a foodie and having street OT, what are some fun facts that people don’t know about you?

King Pexxie: I’m very razz or always like to think I’m razz. I’m a fantastic dancer. I’m not really a tech person; people think I’m tech savvy for someone my age but I’m not all that tech savvy. The thing people don’t know about me but they think they know is that they only know what I show them. I can as well be married today and they wouldn’t know.

YellowLyfe Mag: What Birthed King Pexxie for someone whose name is Lekan Bamidele?

King Pexxie: Honestly, I can’t even pinpoint how it came about, but I think it was my sister though. She had “berry” in her name, so I thought it was fancy. I wanted a name too, so she suggested three names, Berry, Pexxie and Perry. I thought Perry sounded feminine, so I went with Pexxie. It was also perfect at the time because there was nobody with that name online.

YellowLyfe Mag: So, what are some of the principles that you live by?

King Pexxie: I’m very heavy on Loyalty because I would literally ride to the end for people that I’m friends with and I expect the same level of loyalty from them. I’m very big on Service as well, I think my love language is Acts of Service. However, I think my biggest principle in life is never to look down on anybody.

YellowLyfe Mag: Why did you make an upward turn to entirely focus on Bohemian Law against KP digital and Tours?

King Pexxie: The media company is currently being managed by my friend and partner, Mariam. The reason why I switched to Law was that I wanted to practice what I had spent 6 years of my life learning. Before that, I had seen an American series that spurred me to Action. So Mariam and I decided that she should focus on media while I focus on Law. It has been an amazing decision since then, a little bit difficult but rewarding. However, if you asked me why I studied Law, I have seen criminal justice in Nigeria on different levels. As I said, I grew up in the Agege area of Lagos and I have witnessed Jungle justice or people being assaulted because they were not able to stand up for their rights. It gives a build-up internally into how you see people and humanity generally. I might not be in the criminal justice system as such but I’m never far away, always supporting and speaking up for people.

YellowLyfe Mag: What inspires you daily?

King Pexxie: The surface-level answer would be SAPA, the fear of being broke. It inspires me daily.  However, it would be such a great disservice to myself and the people who look up to me if I do not live up to expectations.

YellowLyfe Mag: You recently started, “The Hustle with Ynaija”, tell us about the show in detail?

King Pexxie: Hmm… The people at Ynaija reached out to me and said they wanted me to host the show. This is because during the lockdown, I had single-handedly built, produced and directed a web-based Instagram live show called “LOCKDOWN Radio” which was done one hour every day for the whole month and the subject was resounding, and the acceptance was mind-blowing. The hustle is pretty much a show where we discuss different societal issues ranging from Cancel culture, celebrities and influencers living the realities of life down to Instagram vendors and many more. There’s no holding back and there’s no topic that’s off limits and that’s the beauty of it. We just bring young people around to come and discuss their hustle and what fuels that hustle.

YellowLyfe Mag: Can you explain to us why persistence is so important and why no matter how many No’s you get, you won’t give up?

King Pexxie: Persistence and Consistency are the sole ingredients that add to you being an amazing entrepreneur or whatever it is that you are looking to do. I don’t see any reason why you would put in so much effort to start up something and you wouldn’t want to be consistent or persistent with it. However, there’s also the place of knowing when to let go when it no longer serves you. I said I never quit but I’m also never one to shy away from something that doesn’t seem profitable or that doesn’t seem like it’s going to work at the moment. I once ran a business called 1411, a clothing line for Men’s traditional wear for two years. However, it didn’t seem like it was going anywhere because I had to focus on a lot of other things while I was doing that. So I closed up but I’m not ashamed to talk about it because there’s no shame in closing up something that no longer serves you.

YellowLyfe Mag: What would your advice be for someone who is multi-talented and runs more than one business?

King Pexxie: No matter how talented you think you are, I would just advise you to delegate. There’s no shame in delegating because when you do, you realize that you are at your utmost best and you are more effective. When you don’t delegate and are running all those things at the same time, you become less effective. Also, take time to rest, because a well-rested mind is a  well-functioning mind. Take breaks when you can, don’t wait until your body forces you to do so.

YellowLyfe Mag: Describe your Journey using 5 words.?

King Pexxie: Spiritual, Rewarding, Tasking, Resilient, Persistent

YellowLyfe Mag: What is the most challenging part of being an entertainment lawyer in Nigeria?

King Pexxie: It’s a two-pronged approach. First is the fact that other people don’t take you seriously because they see you as a comedian. They don’t dignify you to be serious enough to handle serious issues that are not entertainment related even when you have so much competence to handle more complicated issues.

The other challenge is industry based. The fact that people are not taking entertainment-related issues as seriously as they should and it’s costing them a lot of money. People are neck-deep in things that they could have easily avoided such as signing deals that are not good enough, intellectual property theft and much more only if they had taken it seriously from the onset.

YellowLyfe Mag: What are some of your favourite quotes?

King Pexxie: Now that you asked, nothing is coming to my head. I just say, “Never say Never”. That’s it.