From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Chapter 582: LIVE

The clock on the wall read 11:59 PM.

In the JD Records conference room, the air had gone still — the kind of stillness that only existed in the seconds before something monumental happened. Every pair of eyes was locked on the massive digital display mounted on the far wall, where a single number glowed in cold white light.

10.

Dayo stood at the head of the long mahogany table, his fingers resting lightly against its polished surface. He wasn’t sitting. He hadn’t sat in over an hour. Across from him, the core team of JD Records had gathered — some in chairs, some leaning against walls, some perched on the edge of the table itself. No one had gone home. No one had even *thought* about going home.

9.

Wayne, was drumming his fingers against his thigh in a rhythm only he could hear. His eyes were red-rimmed from three straight days in the studio, but they were wide open now, drinking in every detail of the moment. Beside him, Alice — PR and Media — had her phone clutched in both hands, her thumb hovering over the "post" button of the pre-drafted announcement. One tap. That was all it would take.

8.

Ulrich, stood with his arms crossed tight against his chest, his jaw set in that familiar rigid line. But his eyes betrayed him. They kept flickering toward Dayo, then back to the screen, then to Dayo again — as if he still couldn’t quite believe they had made it this far.

7.

Valarie, the CEO, sat in the leather chair at the far end of the table. She looked calm. She always looked calm. But her right hand was wrapped so tightly around the armrest that her knuckles had gone pale.

6.

Dayo exhaled slowly. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat — not from fear, but from the sheer *weight* of anticipation. This wasn’t just a song. This was the first real shot. The first time he wasn’t holding back and was going all in when releasing. This was *Beautiful Things* — his voice, his story, his name on the cover.

5.

Someone in the back whispered something. No one shushed them. The whisper died on its own.

4.

Luna stood near the window, slightly apart from the others. She wasn’t looking at the screen. She was looking at Dayo. She had been looking at him for the past ten minutes, and he felt it — that steady, unwavering gaze that had anchored him through every doubt, every late night, every moment he had wanted to quit. She believed in him. She had believed in him before anyone else in this room had even known his name.

3.

Dayo met her eyes. She gave him the smallest nod — not a smile, not encouragement, just a quiet *I know*. It was enough.

2.

The room held its breath. Every person. Every heartbeat. Every thought suspended in the electric silence.

1.

0.

The number vanished. For one fraction of a second, nothing happened. The screen went blank. Then —

LIVE.

The word exploded across the display in bold green letters, and the room *erupted*.

Cheers shattered the silence. Wayne let out a whoop that sounded more like a battle cry. Alice’s thumb came down on her phone, and somewhere in the digital ether, the announcement went public. Ulrich uncrossed his arms just long enough to slam his palm against the table, a rare grin cracking his stern features. Valarie leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, exhaling a breath she seemed to have been holding for months.

Dayo didn’t move. He stood there, watching the word *LIVE* pulse on the screen, feeling something settle deep in his chest. Not relief. Not yet. Something heavier. Something that felt like the beginning of a war he had finally chosen to fight.

Then he reached beneath the table and pulled out the bottle he had hidden there since morning.

The cork left the champagne bottle with a sharp, satisfying *pop*. Foam spilled over his fingers, cold and reckless, and Dayo raised the bottle high above his head.

"Cheers!"

His voice cut through the chaos, and the room answered him. Someone produced plastic cups from somewhere — no one would ever remember where — and the golden liquid was passed around, spilling, laughing, clinking. Dayo didn’t wait for everyone to get a cup. He took a long drink straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and set it down with a decisive *thud*.

The noise dimmed almost instantly.

Dayo looked around the room — really looked at them. These people. This team. This family he had stumbled into and somehow earned the right to stand beside.

"First of I want to thank you all for your. Wayne." His voice was steady now, carrying across the room without effort. "You spent forty-seven hours in that studio. You didn’t sleep. You didn’t complain. You pushed me until my voice cracked, and then you pushed me harder. *Beautiful Things* doesn’t exist without you. Thank you ."

Wayne’s grin softened into something more vulnerable. He lifted his cup in salute, unable to speak.

"Alice." Dayo turned to her. "You crafted a story before the world even heard a single note. You made them *curious*. You made them *care*. Every headline, every post, every whisper in the industry — that’s your work. Thank you."

Alice’s eyes glistened. She pressed her lips together and nodded, quick and fierce.

"Ulrich." Dayo faced Ulrich, and something passed between them — an understanding that hadn’t been there months ago. "You fought for this project when the numbers didn’t make sense. You went to bat for me in rooms I wasn’t allowed into. You didn’t have to do that. Thank you."

Ulrich’s jaw tightened, but he dipped his head — the closest thing to a bow he ever gave.

"Valarie." Dayo’s voice dropped, became something quieter, something almost reverent. "You built this house. You opened the door and let me walk through it. You didn’t owe me anything. You gave me everything. Thank you."

Valarie didn’t respond immediately. She held his gaze, her dark eyes unreadable, and then she lifted her cup — not in toast, but in acknowledgment. In trust.

Dayo’s chest tightened. He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice had changed. It wasn’t quieter. If anything, it was stronger. But there was a tremor in it now — not of doubt, but of absolute, terrifying certainty.

"And Luna." He found her in the crowd, still standing by the window, still watching him with that same steady gaze. "You believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. You saw something in me that I couldn’t see. You stood by me when standing by me made no sense. Thank you."

"And to everyone from the top to the lowest your FAMILY to me and your contribution to this song is as important as that of that of Wayne that produced it i want you all to know that."

The room had gone quiet again. The champagne was still fizzing in plastic cups, but no one was drinking anymore. They were listening.

Dayo straightened his shoulders. The warmth in his voice evaporated, replaced by something harder. Something that made the air in the room feel thinner.

"Now." He let the word hang. "I need all of you to understand something."

He paused, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable. Until every person in that room was leaning forward, straining to catch what came next.

"I’ve been careful," Dayo said. "I’ve been polite. I’ve played the game the way everyone told me to play it. Work hard, stay humble, let the music speak for itself." A ghost of a smile crossed his lips, but there was no humor in it. "That’s over."

He looked from face to face, making sure they saw him. The real him. The one he had kept locked away behind manners and caution and the fear of being too much.

"But for this particular song-"

"I’m going all out."

The words landed like stones thrown into still water.

"Every interview. Every stage. Every platform. Every country that will have me." Dayo’s voice rose, not in volume, but in intensity. "I’m not holding back anymore. I’m not waiting for permission. I’m not hoping the algorithm notices. I’m going to make it *see* me. I’m going to make them *hear* me. And I’m going to do it in ways that will make some of you uncomfortable."

He let that sink in.

"So if you’re with me — *really* with me — I need your best. Not your good. Not your trying. Your *best*. Because I promise you this: what I just gave you with *Beautiful Things*? That was me holding back. The next one? The next one is going to be something else entirely."

The room was frozen.

Valarie wasn’t surprised. Her expression hadn’t changed — she had known. Ulrich, too, seemed to have expected this, his arms crossed again, but there was a new light in his eyes. Approval, maybe. Or challenge.

But everyone else — Wayne, Alice, the marketing team huddled near the door, the engineers by the soundboard, the assistants hovering in the corners — they were staring at Dayo as if he had transformed into someone else. Because he had. The Dayo they knew was hardworking, yes. Dedicated, absolutely. But he was also reserved, almost painfully humble, the kind of artist who let his work speak and stayed quiet in the background. He didn’t *pursue* spotlight. He didn’t *chase* headlines. He didn’t *demand* attention.

This Dayo — the one standing before them with fire in his eyes and a promise on his tongue — was someone they had never met.

And then, in the absolute silence that followed his declaration, someone said it.

"Wow."

The word was soft. Almost breathless. But in that room, in that moment of pin-drop silence, it might as well have been a gunshot.

Every head snapped toward the source. Every eye narrowed, searching for the fool who had interrupted Dayo mid-declaration. Who had dared to break the spell with something as casual, as careless, as *wow*.

Whispers ignited immediately, hissing through the room like wildfire.

"Its the intern."

"He’s done for."

"Did he seriously just—"

"Ulrich is going to destroy him."

The intern — a lanky young man with thick-rimmed glasses and a JD Records lanyard hanging crooked around his neck — didn’t flinch. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t even seem to hear the whispers. His eyes were fixed on something behind Dayo, something on the far wall, and his mouth was slightly open, his finger raised in a trembling point.

"Look," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but in the shocked quiet, it carried perfectly. "Look at the screen."

Dayo turned.

The big screen — the same one that had displayed the countdown, the same one that had flashed *LIVE* in triumphant green — had changed. It was no longer a simple status display. It had become a living, breathing thing. A dashboard of numbers that were moving so fast they seemed to blur.

Beautiful Things — Global Stream Counter

The number beneath it was climbing. Not incrementing —*climbing. Hundreds per second. Thousands. Tens of thousands.

But that wasn’t what had stolen the intern’s breath.

Beneath the counter, a map of the world pulsed with light. Countries were lighting up in shades of green — soft at first, then brighter, then blazing. And beside each glowing nation, numbers appeared. Numbers that made no sense. Numbers that couldn’t possibly be real.

**Nigeria —

**United States —

**United Kingdom —

**Brazil —

**South Korea —

**Japan —

...

The list went on. Twenty countries. Thirty. Forty. Places Dayo had never been. Places where none of his music had been. Places where *Beautiful Things* should have been nothing more than silence.

But it wasn’t silence.

It was *everywhere*.

Someone’s cup hit the floor. The plastic bounced, champagne spilling in a golden pool, and no one moved to clean it. Alice’s phone slipped from her fingers, clattering against the table. Wayne’s mouth was open, his eyes darting from country to country, number to number, as if his brain couldn’t process the data fast enough.

Ulrich had gone completely still. Even Valarie — unshakeable Valarie — had risen from her chair, her hand pressed against her chest, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Dayo didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He stood before the screen, watching his name spread across the world in real-time, and felt something he had never felt before. Not pride. Not triumph. Something deeper. Something that tasted like destiny.

The intern’s voice cut through the hush, small and wondering:

"It’s... it’s everywhere. Sir, it’s *everywhere*."

And the room stayed frozen — suspended between disbelief and the dawning, terrible, beautiful understanding that nothing would ever be the same again.