Speaking in a now-viral account, Edwards disclosed that the song was recorded in a makeshift studio inside a room he was squatting in, using a microphone of poor quality, with both himself and the equipment wrapped under a blanket to block out the noise of passing vehicles on a nearby roadside.
The version listeners fell in love with is the exact one captured in those conditions — it was never re-recorded, never touched up in a professional facility, and never given the polish most people assumed it must have had.
The studio itself had been set up using ₦150,000 his mother gave him to support his music, money he invested in equipment installed inside another man’s house where he had no room of his own.
The studio itself had been set up using ₦150,000 his mother gave him to support his music, money he invested in equipment installed inside another man’s house where he had no room of his own.
At the time, Edwards was earning a monthly salary of just ₦15,000 and surviving on one meal a day with only two pairs of jeans to his name.
The circumstances of his life were stark, but his faith and his music were resolute.
Word had somehow spread in the wrong direction — a flatmate had been telling people they operated a large, well-equipped studio — and that rumour brought a gospel music marketer known as Honesty Music directly to his door.
When the marketer arrived expecting a proper facility and instead found a corner room with a rudimentary setup, his disappointment was immediate and visible. He asked to hear the songs anyway.
What followed is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in Nigerian gospel music history.
What followed is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in Nigerian gospel music history.
After listening to the tracks — none of them professionally recorded, all of them products of the Frank Edwards Mma Mma blanket recording setup — the marketer asked directly whether Edwards had really produced what he was hearing inside that room.
When Edwards confirmed it, the man responded not with scepticism but with a deal: a two-year marketing agreement worth ₦4 million, offered in 2011 at a moment when that sum made no immediate sense to a young man surviving on almost nothing.
Edwards signed the contract without reading it fully, focused simply on the opportunity in front of him.
He later acknowledged that the contract turned out to be fair — and that the payment allowed him to move into a better apartment and build a proper studio for the first time.
The story did not stop there. That deal led eventually to a connection with American gospel legend Don Moen at The Experience concert, where Moen approached Edwards first, told him he had already decided they would work together whenever they met, and followed through — a relationship Edwards credits with transforming his career entirely.
The story did not stop there. That deal led eventually to a connection with American gospel legend Don Moen at The Experience concert, where Moen approached Edwards first, told him he had already decided they would work together whenever they met, and followed through — a relationship Edwards credits with transforming his career entirely.
The story has resonated deeply with aspiring artists and people of faith across Nigeria and beyond, serving as a reminder that neither poverty, nor poor equipment, nor borrowed space can silence a gift that is meant to be heard — and that the conditions of a beginning say nothing about the scale of what follows.
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