Adeyemo Adeyemi aka Don Yayo is one of the young actors in the Yoruba sector of the Nigerian movie industry. His quest and passion for entertainment made him drop his white collar job with the telecommunications company, Etisalat now 9mobile, for car selling business and later movie production.
Don Yayo started his acting career in 2004 and produced his first movie in 2005 making his diploma in Theatre Art from the University of Ibadan to be useful. He has since produced many other movies including Ale Erebe, Omo Kampus, Opa Oro, Bachelor’s Eve, and School Life.
Speaking on his foray into the make believe world, Don Yayo narrated; “I was into music before, then my promoter during that time introduced me to a director who is his friend, then through the director I started developing interest in acting, that was around 2004 and I produced my first movie 2005/2006 and I have featured several others too”.
He, however, said it’s not all that rosy as the journey has been that of a roller coasters.
Don Yayo pointed out that what he considered to be the biggest challenge facing the Nigerian movie industry is finances and piracy.
“Piracy is like a cancer, it is killing the movie industry and the Nigerian creative industry at large. The government needs to do more to help the industry to tackle this menace otherwise it may end up destroying the achievements made so far by the players who toil day and night in the industry,” he stated.
Don Yayo, a native of Ibadan, Oyo State, was born on 31 October 1981 into a family of five –four boys and a girl. He attended Ikolaba Grammar School for his O Level and moved to The Polytechnic, Ibadan and later the University of Ilorin where he bagged a degree in Computer Science.
A well-traveled Adeyemi has visited a lot of countries in Africa and outside the African continent.
