Get familiar...

Nigerian music yesterday lost a diamond in the rough....a diamond nevertheless... DaGrin aka Lyrical Were aka C.E.O the Chief Executive Omoita. The artist who changed Yoruba rap for most people... it was a love affair cut short in those first days, that stage of crazy, hot infatuation for the newly budding naija music fans and for the old die-hard fans alike. Whichever group you fall in, I'm sure you'll agree, you could not help but love him because he flowed seamlessly and made you dance sometimes, made you nod your head, made you laugh sometimes and made you marvel at the way he tied Yoruba and hip-hop so well and made it sometimes sound like it couldn't possibly be all Yoruba or most of the time, just him. Like no one we had heard before. I remember a friend of mine saying after listening to track 3. on the C.E.O album Pon Pon Pon- that he sounds somewhat like a 50 Cent fan (putting it lightly)....I did/do not know how he meant this but I took it to mean that DaGrin had successfully taken Yoruba rap and made it into world-class hip-hop... (well I always do that when people give their opinions on Nigerian songs and music in general).

I take such comments and break them down, he might have meant it sounded like a copy, but the fact that that was all he could say, he did not have any complaints on the flow, he still nodded his head in time to the song and all the others on the album (which I had constantly on repeat last year). That in itself made me happy, and proud of DaGrin, he actually was quite amazing.

But now he's gone, no lamentations, no questions, he's gone. And that is all we will hear from him...all the music DaGrin was destined to make has been made and that is all....that is actually what gets me the most. The fact that he was a young man, a talented one at that, with family and friends and fans and people who he did not know and who did not know him personally are all just extra facts which break my heart more and more when I think about it. But that is all, that's it. God called on him and he's left.

What we (non-family, non-friends) have left of him is his music, his albums his videos and just generally all he put out and was involved in. Now, on twitter last night, it was disturbing to me that about 3 out of 5 comments concerning Dagrin read "I loved kondo", "kondo was my song last holiday" like dudes, how can I take you seriously if you so readily and openly grieve an artist whose album had back to back works of art and the most noisy but (very danceable) track is the one mentioned again and again. I know I am extreme and maybe coarse, but I do not believe you should dramatise a death so much because to me it just makes it common and quickly forgotten. That is why when people die, they don't say a minute of screaming and convulsing but a minute of *silence*. It is respect.

I hope we all can seek solace in the fact that he is in a better place now, he is not suffering, he is with the God he often praised and thanked and gave glory to in his songs. It is well.

Also I also *reeeeealllyyy* hope what we take away from this loss is the fact that our music is ours, if we do not love it, no one will come and love it for us. We should not need the BBC to show us the quality of artistry we have in our country for us to be prompted to openly declare we love it enough to BUY it or listen to it.

Support others like DaGrin, the people who put our country and our culture into musical notes and onto our screens, they make it what we shake our booties to, what we lie back and breathe to, sometimes what we drive and sing along to and if you are like me, WHAT YOU DANCE TILL YOU CAN DANCE NO MORE TO (all in the confines of you sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and in front of any and every mirror). Maybe even what we make love to and what we sing in the shower, we should love it regardless, because it is good. Art is not limited but who knows what might happen today or tomorrow, lets appreciate what we have RIGHT NOW because we are not sure of any other time but now.

RIP DaGrin.

Where do we draw the line? Shabby but happy.

Where do we draw the line between the outside world and our internal being? I often wonder why I let things get to me the way they do and to the extent to which they do. Ever since I can remember, I have been a people's person and more or less very easy to get along with. On the flip side, I am extremely easy to sadden, annoy or generally just get cross and I am very perceptive to the feelings of others... this means that if a person just happens to let one snide remark or a sarcastic or cruel statement get past their lips, heck even an evil thought (to me) sometimes and I find myself closing them off, I can get angry or sad (mostly angry), not because of what someone has said but what I know they are feeling and why ( I may be wrong, but I like to think I'm right all the time :~) they are feeling sarcastic, mean, hurtful or just plain annoying at that point in time.

Being able to maintain that line between my own feelings and those of the outside factors is something I want desperately to be able to do. Being a warm person, someone people immediately feel they can relate to no matter how different you may be from them is something which is priceless, not having to consciously feel the need to hammer down any barriers to become friendly with people is invaluable because sometimes that awkward "please can we be friends" stage is just cringeworthy. Being "nice" is all well and good but what good does it do when all you project to others is: "I am trying my best to be nice so that hopefully, we can be friends and tell each other our secrets and have slumber parties and dress the same and grow up and be each others bridesmaids and god-parents to each others babies....eventually, hopefully"

That's right.... its really really cringeworthy and pretty damn scary too. No one wants to be trapped into friendship or love because they have no choice! I know I certainly don't and whenever I do get the feeling that I am being slowly hooked and reeled in to such situations, I cannot help it but my natural response is to run for the hills. Because anything remotely phony scares me witless. I cannot be at ease with a person, when I cannot read past a fixed plastic smile and eyes that are eerily watching every move I make undoubtedly for future stories to be told or maybe to be recorded somewhere in our "friendship file" in the person's "friendship cabinet" in their brain.

My views I know may come across as extreme but I am convinced some of us feel the need to act this way in order to be liked, or in order to put forward the "best version of themselves" that they can muster up. I guess some of us are just more ambitious than others. I say that because, I for one know I am not, can not and certainly will not EVER be anything even close to perfect. I have known that forever and I am very okay with the thought of just being shabby old me. In fact I love my shabby self, and I like other people who are shabby like me, people who are at ease with their own unique version of shabbiness- and these people's happiness with their shabbiness shines through and acts like a magnet to me. I cannot help but be attracted to these shabby souls like myself because I feel that we are different but on the inside, we are more similar than we are different. I am comfortable with being friendly and open with such people because inside me, I know that they probably do not hate me for being at ease with myself.

The other kind who do all the right things, say the right things, act like they are your guardian angels (even though you probably just met them less than two weeks ago) and constantly reassure you of their undying friendship and the quality of friendship you and them share are the ones who unfortunately just make me sometimes wish I could stop that dreaded *line* which eventually morphs into a 60 ft wall made of cast iron and which sometimes I would love to but cannot even attempt to break down and start again. Because these "perfect" friends are the ones who you find out tell your secrets for fun, they are the ones who let the hurtful comments slip out before they can help themselves, they are the ones who make it clear to you their insecurities and the things they would love you to be sensitive about but they steam roll through your feelings about the most sore topics they know you feel the most sensitive about, just so they can see your reaction, they love to see you at your weakest so they can for once feel bigger and better than you...

Do not despise the shabby ones for being at ease with their shabby selves, work on you first, and in return maybe others will truly love you... better still you just might love you too.

Young man.

Today, nothing will consciously be taken for granted.... antithetical or what. I'm sure he thinks so too...

//TYPOLOGY//

Here's the thing....I like to think I have no "type". Type- when it comes to anything... I have realised I have the most random taste in anything and everything possible. But recently, someone explained something to me... he told me that "random" is relative *of course it is* I rolled my eyes till the sockets hurt, good thing this discussion took place in a darkened room! I'm thinking duh of course it is, but the fact that it is random to me, means it is probably even more random to you. But yeah, he went on to say some other stuff but obviously my mind wandered off (probably started thinking about bunny rabbits or the evil flying chimp things in the Wizard of Oz or something) but I kind of got the gist of what he was trying to explain...that random can never be that random... there's always a pattern being somewhere, somehow.

So yeah... I often wonder about people who... you try and match make or you don't when they want you to do so. The aforementioned, they are single and actively looking or whining about their present situation (or doing both) and then you think of another friend who would be sooo perfect for them and then you get all excited and tell them, might even go ahead and show them the potential partner's pictures on facebook or whatever and then... the previously excited and smiley single friend sees the pictures of their future lover and it all goes downhill... first of all you notice their eyes have lost the excited sparkle that was there two minutes ago. Their smiles melt off their faces and if you give them a few more seconds, it is very possible you might spot what could be badly concealed anger/resentment. I have seen this too many times. They look at the potential "p" and then look at you and you can just tell they are thinking "what?? me?? and him/her??? ewww!! He/she is soo not my type!! I am too hot for this minger!!" So Is this the best this b***h thinks I can do??" and they could go on and on if you don't jump in and say "hehehe I was just joking, just to see your reaction, and they are so happy to believe that and forget the potential "p" in a hurry.

In the second category, are the friends who perhaps spot a potential "p" all by themselves and then they suddenly get this lightbulb that they've spotted their perfect match and you are the only one who can help because you just may happen to know the object of their desire. It doesn't matter that you might not know the potential enough to bring up the topic of hooking them up with someone.

And I have done it sometimes, just so I don't feel like I am standing in the way of L--- (fill in the blanks) who am I to say whether or not they will get along? If either of them doesn't remember they are in already in a long-term relationship, who am I to bring up said subject repeatedly?(sometimes in such cases, I just say no, sorry) my conscience won't let me. But then I feel mean and judgemental like, am I God, but I prefer any feeling to the feeling of guilt. So I'll choose being judgemental and say NO! "Go do it yourself".

Oh yeah types....to be continued...time for tuna pasta.

My type of music.

I think I feel like addressing my taste in music.

I love Nigerian music. Have done as long as I can remember...I loved it before I realised how much I did. That's it.... simple fact.

I wonder why though..I mean, I have throughout my life been exposed to a wide range of genres. I have myself gone through phases, I remember my older sister teaching me the "steps" to go with every song that came out when she was in secondary school, I remember listening to my brother's hip-hop blaring out of the "dec" after school, those afternoons I would come back from playing ten-ten with my girlfriends and talking about "cooties", hop into the house and immediately be welcomed by the melodies of Bone-thugs, the poetry of 'Pac, the smug boasts of BIG or the angry growls of DMX. I remember the ooooold cable we had, the one before DSTV, before Multichoice even... the one that had no dish, just plain cable. The one we watched the real, original MTV on and BBCgold, the one that showed Nirvana songs before Kurt was dead, that showed REM when I thought it was some weird guy singing interesting songs, that reeeeally old one with mostly British channels and fuzzy signal.

So I guess I've always known about music, how every song is (well, was) different in the way it sounded (not anymore) and whatever issue it addressed, whether it was unrequited love, self loathing, the devil, the hustle to be rich, sex, whatever (since the emergence of the term "swagger", DEFINITELY not anymore!)

Music always was a marvel to me, I always envied the people who had the gift, not so much the people who had the voices, but the people who knew how to intricately weave their thoughts and emotions together so well that even with the hard task of expressing everything in such a way that would be melodic and would rhyme and be easily understandable to even a little black, African girl all the way in Nigeria so clearly, those were the ones I saw as superhuman. I mean it is difficult enough to express what you are feeling in words in a way that fits the purpose (not all the time) well to make each sentence sound somewhat like it leads on to the next naturally without any effort is.... well to me, a great thing.

The thing is, with me, I do still like a very wide range of music.... but....I only like the stuff that sounds like the person who's made it cared about the music and its message as opposed to the money or fame its going to bring to them. Well..... that should tell a lot about the sort of person I am. SILLY!! I mean, who makes music and doesn't think of how they will feel if everyone in the world could hear their song and love it? No one, that's who. But in my own world I like to believe people do things for the love of the thing they are doing and not for the material rewards or other sorts of rewards we would generally think of as "surface" e.g. money, free and speedy entry to clubs, groupie love, freebies lol...the more I type the more I consider going into the music industry myself.

Well, Back to the love of my music. Thats exactly why.....it feels like my music.... not some strange territory I am sampling or just some sound. I haven't forced my senses to become accustomed to it, or tuned my ears to pick up every nuance in what is said in the songs I am listening to.... it feels natural. It tells of things I want to know about.... things that sound familiar, yet sometimes, distant to me... things that evoke feelings within me, whether they are of joy, of amusement, hope, despair, sadness or just.... you know.... emotion. I actually feel something in me when I listen to this music.

Now lets not get this twisted and make it sound like its allll the songs that are churned out of Nigeria and "Nigerians in diaspora" that I immediately fall for and claim "I heart". No no no no no and no again. Such is NOT the case. I recognise that the people with this gift of expressing their true feelings through music do not only come for my country, and also that not all "musicians" or "artistes" from my beloved country are doing so.

However (yaaaay this is the point that I narrow it down), that quality is what differentiates to me what I would (off the top of my head) describe as melodic jargon and authentic music. That word itself conveys the gravity of the meaning of the word.

Need I say more??? well....I'd like to, I guess I shouldn't have asked then..... oh well.

The stuff you remember afterwards, the stuff from people who think like you, the people who make you think like them, make you see through their eyes and feel through their.....erm feelings(???) I guess. Aren't those the ones you want to listen to time and time again, to see if there is anything you missed in what they said 5 minutes ago when you listened and promised yourself you would move on to the next song as soon as this one ended. That feeling like when you are not listening to it, even though it is on a relentless repeat in your mind, it still isn't loud or real enough to satisfy your desire to hear it again?

That feeling. That's what I feel. Is that or is that not how music should feel??

Is it just me?

....or is the fact that things just seem to *happen* around and to me enough to get me a bit angry.

I am not saying things are bad, on the contrary, almost everything is pretty great..great things happen and are happening on a daily basis, its just that I don't feel like I have much to do with them happening. They just do. I'm not complaining about that either. Its hard to explain. I just feel like I'm a floating piece of matter. A floating piece of matter that is somewhat important (as every other one is as well) but a floating one nonetheless.

I don't want to be a floater....I want to be actively moving, one that can go against the flow of things when it wants and is capable of effecting change because it can.

How do I explain this? I want to do things, not because they are probably the best option at the time....but just because I felt like doing, and I did. I want to make mistakes because, you know..they just happen, not because- I didn't know...or it wasn't entirely (or even partly) my fault... it was completely someone else's.

I think I'm just having a funny day, week, month, couple of months.

Oh and yeah, probably should say something about not writing for like....two months....hmmmm

I just didn't :P haha.xx

The world has changed...again.

"He had shared the magic of those medieval heroes who could not die until they had come to the end of their long story, until they had achieved their great victories"

-Mario puzo

Last night something changed, and it made me think about how a lot of other things have changed also in recent times. Michael Jackson passed away.

He was born a black boy, went on to be one of the greatest if not *the* greatest performer of our time. I have chosen not to google up any information on him, just to go with what I know about the man.
What I personally knew him as - which probably will be minute considering the fact that I was born in the very late 80's and was either not born or still too young to thoroughly enjoy the man at the time I feel he was at his "prime". There are many other people who had personal experiences (maybe not in person) but they did have the privilege of witnessing his prowess of entertaining...his singing, his dancing, his clothes, his ever-changing physical appearance, the crazy stories of the events of his life, his marriages, his pets (we can't forget dear Bubbles)...more recently, his children, the speculations on the circumstances under which they were conceived, the sometimes alarming extent to which he would protect them from public exposure(literally), oh....and the incident....the balcony incident....we remember that as well.

Well this isn't about his life, what went on with him, what he did or didn't do, not about what he looked like or what he was, its about what he meant and what he still means in our hearts and in those of future generations.

I do not believe that if our children in ten or twenty year's time see a picture of him will understand what it was like to hear his music. They will first of all be confused....you show them a picture or a video of ....Thriller, and then you show them a picture of him from his 2009 tour promo. They will find it hard to relate the handsome young man in the first video with the footage of a 50 year old man who looked very *interesting*. Many of our kids will be astonished when perhaps sometime in the teenage years or maybe even later that "Michael Jackson" was actually born black!

I can just imagine the conversation between to friends..."Kunbi" says to "Fifi"..."OMG can you believe that Michael Jackson was actually black?!?! Black?!" Fifi will be just as shocked, perhaps google his name and Biography maybe even dig up some old images of young Michael, they will share it on whatever IM platform they are using at the time....they will both take a second (or more to discuss and more importantly, to think about him), talk about the possible reasons for the drastic change in appearance, talk about their favourite songs of his, they might even share some and compare...one of them might choose to put up some picture of him as her profile picture on the future grandchild of Facebook or twitter, whatever.

Basically, his memory will be alive in us and in our children. We will remember him, they will think about him, imagine what it was like when he was around, ask us questions and I do not doubt they will buy his music, download it, watch his performances. They will keep him alive.

There isn't too much to say on the issue of the death of Michael Jackson, it is a sad event, another sad event in the world. But everyday people die of poverty, people starve to death, people die in wars, people are abused, some are alive with no life, they live lives "working" for others, with no pay, no rights, they are treated the way some of our pets definitely are not treated...their basic needs are not satisfied. They cannot do what they want, only what others force them to do, some people are slaves to others. I'm sure those people would happily trade places with Michael now.

He, like any other human being, had his set of troubles. Those people I refer to who live their lives with no life are not the only ones with problems...the only difference is other people have a particular set of problems, life as we know it comes with its ups and downs, the people I speak of , (I would imagine) do not know what an "up" would even feel like.

Michael is not the only one. Elvis, Fela, Bob, Kurt....I'm sure there are more. They all came and went. Gave what they had to give. Shared with us the gift of ther God-given talent. I'm sure no one out there can deny that each of these legends did in fact give us a gift. I can't think of any other word to use other than "gift". What else can I use to describe how it feels to listen or watch any of these people??

All we can do now is give thanks. To them and to God. They came, they blessed and they left. They were human beings too, they lived normal lives (to some extent) they were real people with real bodies, real talent, real problems....but we can't forget the blessings they got too. The love they felt from their fans, the political influence, the material riches, the legacy they have left, the lives they left their children and finally, their legacy, among a multitude of other things I cannot even begin to fathom.

Fame is not the point here, it is the legacy, the fact that images of them are burned into my mind and millions of other minds and this will not change, they will be familiar to people born now and those yet to be born.

It is a great loss...but we cannot dwell on the fact that he has died. He was a human being too, vulnerable and weak just like everbody else, the inevitable came. But he was different. That's why he is still alive in our minds and our hearts. So to the die-hard fans out there, do not be too sad, pray for his children, his family. They are the ones who knew him as a person, his strengths, his weaknesses, his ins and outs, they loved him as their brother, their father, their child.

It's life...what can we do? But move on and live ours. Remember those worth remembering and that should make them happy wherever they are. That's our gift to them.

Love.x