Happy Birthday Tuface Idibia: Here are Five Things to Know About the Singer as he Clocks 43

Today, the Nigerian entertainment industry celebrates legendry singer, Tuface Idibia as he clocks the age of 43. Having gained the admiration of so many people across borders as the pioneer of contemporary Nigerian music, one of the outstanding qualities of the singer, is his humility.

Over the years, Tuface has come to be known as the singer with many children. Recently, he gained his place as former miss Annie Macaulay’s husband. There, however, exists some salient facts about the singer that continues to become less and less popular by the ticking of the clock.

As the world celebrates a living legend today, we bring to you, five things about Tuface Idibia that you probably didn’t know.

Five things you should know about Tuface Idibia.

In no particular order, below are some facts about the legendary Tubaba.

• As a student of Mount Saint Gabriel’s Secondary School in Makurdi, Benue State, Tuface formed his first music group. Together with three other friends in the year 1992, the singer’s first group was called Black Universe. While seeking admission into higher institution, the singer became friends with Augustine Ahmedu (BlackFace). The duo performed together in secondary schools around Otukpo, Benue State. He was however, known as Inie Raps at that time.
• Having studied at the University of Jos for a Pre-remedial program in 1994, Tuface went on to the Institute of Management and Technology in 1995, for a National Diploma in Business Administration. His education was however, cut short by his passion for music. He therefore, dropped out of school and traveled to Lagos, where he gained popularity. Before his exit from Enugu, in 1997. Tuface and Blackface formed the Plantashun Boiz and were later joined by Faze in the year 2000. This brought  them to a total of three singers in the group. It was at this point that he ditched the name, Inie Raps, to take on Tuface.

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• The singer’s debut album, Face 2 Face hit the airways in 2004. It was in this album that his song, African Queen, was birthed. Having recorded tremendous success, the album won him several awards, including the first ever MTV Base Awards for Best African Act. The song’s video later took it’s place in history as the first ever video to be played on MTV Base Africa.

Family life and Marriage.

• The story of Tuface’s love life and the birth of all his kids, is nothing like that of any other Nigerian celebrity. In 2006, his first babymama, Sumbo Ajaba, had the singer’s first son, Nino.(See Nino’s birthday message to his dad here). Having given the paternity of the child to another man, whom she said was made to get married to by her pastor, Sumbo had to return the child to the singer after his birth. This was because of the striking semblance between the boy who is now 12 and his father. After divorcing her husband, Sumbo moved in with the singer, with the help of his mother. She however, moved out of the house when she had her second child and discovered that other women were also pregnant with the singer’s children. He now has a total of seven children from three different women; Sumbo, Pero Adeniyi and Annie Idibia.

Marriage.

• In 2012, the singer finally walked down the isle with the love of his life, Annie Macaulay. Having featured in the video of his first major hit track, African Queen, Annie already had two kids for the singer, before their marriage. According to the him, he had met several amazing women, two of which are the mother of his kids, but among them all, Annie was the one that understood him the most. Speaking with the Nigerian Monitor, the singer noted that he just knew Annie was the person he wants to stay with. Six years down the line, the music star has remained happily married to his choicest woman..

To say that Tuface has had a successful career and life, would be stating the obvious. Waxing stronger in his craft, the singer who is now 43, stands as one of the fathers of contemporary African Music. Warm birthday wishes to him.