Biography
Oligbese, whose birth names are Raphael Ehis Oboh was born and raised in Ewohimi in Esan North-East local government area of Edo State, Nigeria.
He attended Adolor Primary School and Edo College in Benin city, completed his secondary school education at Pilgrims Baptist Grammar School, Ewohimi.
After his secondary school education, he had to leave for Lagos in search of greener pasture. After arriving at Lagos, he had no where to stay,he had to hang out under the Lagos bridge, where he met a couple of others who were also living under the bridge at Obalende by Police Barracks. They were barbers, so, for him to survive, he also had to learn that profession. he had his own shop where he did barbing under the bridge for about seven years and also trained some boys.
From the money he made from barbing, he enrolled for GCE exams because he didn't go back to check his WAEC result after leaving the village. he also wrote JAMB and got an admission to study Business Administration in the University of Benin, but he couldn't further because of financial constraints.
He remained a destitute for 11 years. To make matters worse, the Lagos State Task Force came and destroyed his barbing shop under the bridge. He had to move to Ajegunle and began working as a bus conductor for a couple of months from where he raised money and joined his cousin at Ajegunle to start selling fairly used clothes. They both traveled to Kantagwa to buy, then hawked them on the streets and to Queens Barracks in Apapa, Falomo Barracks in Ikoyi and sometimes at Obalende Barracks.
The money he made from hawking clothes was used in recording his first album, Do Something, Pamurege, released in October 2003. Finished the recording in 2001, there was nobody to take the job. He had to begin hunting for marketers until he met Progressive Sound Park, an Igbo man and sold that album that made him famous for N30,000 and he was paid in four instalments.
The first show he had, they brought him to Benin city to play and he was paid N300,000. He almost passed out when he was paid the money in cash, because then at Ajegunle, they just went to shows to play and dance.
When he arrived back in Lagos, he became like a king among my musicians. From then on, his life started changing, and bought his first car, Benz 190, after he went to his first tour in Europe in 2006. He went to Italy, Germany and Austria.
When he returned, he did his second album "I Get Before Na Story" and it became another big hit again. From then he started hustling and he decided to settle down as a man and to also go back to school. He married his wife, after two kids, he decided he had to go back to school to study Business Administration. He has three albums to his credit. Currently, working on another gospel album "Open My Way"
