Kanaga Jnr, Tomiwa Tegbe on their characters in ‘MTV Shuga Naija’ season 5

But prior to joining the reality TV show, he landed one of the lead roles (Kachi Okezie) on the new season of MTV Shuga Naija, alongside Genoveva Umeh, who plays his love interest.

The newcomer is now part of an established cast that includes Tomiwa Tegbe, who joined the franchise in 2017. He plays Wasiu in the popular TV series powered by MTV Staying Alive Foundation.

In this exclusive interview with Pulse, the two discuss their roles, the lengths they go to bring their characters to life, craziest reactions from fans and more:

Kanaga Jnr: I auditioned for the role. I saw the casting call via Instagram last year so I sent in my audition tape. After sending my monologue, I got a call from the producer. I screamed when I got the call. It was a beautiful day because I was with my mom, and we just celebrated that day. Then, I went for the table read and we went straight to production. Expect drama, love, and romance from Kachi. Expect to see a young 16-year-old boy who is naive and has grown with a certain interesting narrative.

Kanaga: The first thing for me was the looks. I had to get rid of the little one that was growing up from the moustache down to the goatee in order to look 16 years old. I had to take it all in and go back to how I would have reacted to this situation when I was 16 years. It was a journey for me. I didn’t grow up with Kachi’s narrative so that was a little bit difficult. So, I did my research which really helped me to bring the character to life.

Relationship-wise, the only person I had acted with before Shuga was Gbubemi Ejeye and she played my sister. So, that connection was there already so playing siblings again just made sense. For my love interest Genoveva Umeh, all it took was one conversation that we had the night before going on set and we spoke about a lot. By the time we went on set, it felt like we had known each other before Shuga. The connection was so natural, nothing was forced and it made work so easy. We were able to communicate at every point in production. She is such an amazing actress, she doesn’t just want the best out of herself, she also wants the best out of every single scene. We were open to learning from each other.

Tomiwa Tegbe: Let me start with this caveat. I am nothing close to Wasiu in real life. I grew up in Ibadan, and I attended public school at some point. I feel like if you went through secondary school, you must have encountered Wasiu at some point. He is the guy that sits at the back of the class, always like forming inner cartel in school so I drew from those experiences. I also speak a little Yoruba so I had to infuse all that street lingo into the character to add more layers to the character. I mingled with a lot of friends who have that street orientation. It was a pretty beautiful discovery to eventually find the character. For the first two seasons, I had to shave my beard, basically what Kanaga experienced this season is what I did then. But now, I was given the liberty to grow out my beard because baba don grow small.

For this season, I drew from my personal experiences. As human beings, we are constantly evolving in our mindset and where I am now mentally is definitely not where I was five or 10 years ago. I had to unlearn and relearn some things so I drew from that. I have had family members who were prodigal sons before but are now started trying to reintegrate themselves into the family again by walking back the mistakes they made. So drawing from that and understanding the complexities of making amends and mending relationships was important for me this season. There are so many things that Wasiu does this season that you would have never seen him do in previous seasons.

Tomiwa: We all know what my character got up to the previous season, so without giving much away, let’s just say that my character is walking the path towards redemption this season. He is trying to right his wrongs. He understands the consequences of his actions. My character is basically trying to find himself this season. It’s just interesting what my character story arc has been right from inception. We have seen this guy make mistakes, identity crisis and indulge in silly stuff, but now he is trying to be emotionally mature and emotionally intelligent. It’s interesting to see what that is going to be like this is because trouble finds him even when he is trying to right his wrongs.

Kanaga: Honestly going into that character was a lot because that is not Kanaga. I feel like I will probably be dragged at some point because that guy is something. People will be curious about how a young boy is already growing up in such a culture. It’s disturbing. A lot of people will question certain actions. There’s a particular scene sha, but no spoilers.

Tomiwa: To add to what Kanaga said, we can’t pretend that a lot of guys didn’t grow up with that kind of conditioning. I feel like it will be triggering for some but it is a true reality of what it’s like here in present-day society. So, him embodying that character is quite timely to be honest because a lot of stereotypes need to be changed a lot of mindsets need to be changed. A lot of people are the way they are right now because of social conditions. As I said, I had to unlearn and relearn because I have been exposed to information now that I didn’t have before. Some things are passed down to us by our culture but we have to unlearn them and learn new things with more exposure. I feel like his character is a good medium to pass that message. Of course, they might hate you but they will appreciate for taking one for the clan.

Tomiwa: There have been many reactions including people blowing up my DM with curses saying, ‘You are a bastard, why you give that babe HIV.’ Aside from that, there is one particular instance when an elderly woman saw me at the filling station. She spanked me on my back and said, ‘You, you are such a bad boy. Why would you give her HIV?’ The attendants were confused and looking at me weirdly. I said, ‘Ma, it’s my character’ and she said, ‘Even though.’ I was so embarrassed. At the end of the day, I feel like if you can evoke strong emotions in people like that, then you have done your job.

Last season, it was revealed that Wasiu had contracted HIV in the last two episodes so we didn’t exactly see how he navigated that. We saw that in the bite-sized Youtube series MTV Shuga Alone Together. Most of the positive messages came during the lockdown when the series started airing on Youtube. I got messages from people living with HIV who were appreciative of how much I tried as possible to show how it’s possible to live with HIV, deal with stigmatisation and navigate relationships. It was during that covid period, I had some positive feedback concerning my character but during the show, all i got were curses. I feel honoured to be able to embody that character, to get people to resonate with my character on that level and make people understand that it’s not the end of the world.

Kanaga: Educative, interesting, gbas gbos

Tomiwa: Useful, phenomenal and delicious because na Shuga.

Season five aired on MTV Base, but you catch up on all the drama on YouTube. New episodes are uploaded every Wednesday by 8 pm WAT on the channel.

Watch an exciting teaser of the last episode: