Music, memories and messages

Money can’t take you to heaven, your car can’t either. And neither can a spouse nor a friend… Life is an ever-continuing battle you can only win if you guard your heart jealously.

You are cruising your Toyota Corrola on a sunny midday to a block of apartments called Sweetwaters in the Northside of Houston, a forty-minute ride from the Southwest of the city where you took off. Tracy Chapman is entertaining you, keeping you company as you navigate the roads, conscious of the ubiquitous American police. As Chapman sings songs that made her a star, memories tug at your heart, memories of those days when you lived with an aunt in a flat on Orile Road in Agege.

In those days, Boda Wale, your aunt’s immediate half brother, was a fan of Tracy Chapman and days after days, he terrified you with her sonorous music. You soon became a devotee and worshipped at her feet. In those days, you assumed she was South African.  It would take years before you realised your mistake.

As she sings from ‘Baby Can I Hold You’ to ‘Fast Car’ to ‘Give Me One Reason’ and ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’, you are back in Lagos, bathed in memories of years never to be experienced again and tears gather but do not cascade down.

Tracy Chapman makes you remember other songs that take you way back, way, way back in time. This night you find yourself searching for a live performance of KWAM 1 on YouTube. You soon find it. He did the show at the National Arts Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos in the early 90s. Most mornings, a car radio your uncle installed in the boys quarters in Orile-Agege blared this show’s cassette on and on and on. You know the lyrics almost line by line.

Memories seize you as YouTube does you the favour of having a copy of this part of your childhood for streaming. It reminds you of your father’s house on 26 Ayige Street, that house where he drove different models of brand new Peugeot, where he later drove a rundown SUV, where his second daughter died after years of battle with illness, where several family members lived with you, where your mother has battled all kinds of ailments for over two decades, where your father one day went for a medical test and was told he had a heart problem and he was dead that same day.

You also remember the day you came back from primary school in June 1984, and your pregnant mother asked you to fetch her water to take her bath after which she left for Betta Hospital on Coker Road and returned with your last born, Seun, now forty years old.

The song also reminds you of Wale Olomu, a journalist and brother to motivational speaker and author, Mr Dayo Olomu. In the song, KWAM 1 praised Wale, who died not long after the show. Dayo was KWAM 1’s manager. Both of them, though born in the United Kingdom, grew up in Orile-Agege and were members of a Celestial Church of Christ, which remains almost opposite your childhood home till date. The song also reminds you of Funmilayo, a sibling of the Olomus who was your classmate at Orile-Agege Primary School.

Another evening, Agidigbo FM, thanks to Radio App, is taking you to the Island town of Epe, your picturesque hometown where you interred your father’s remains on October 2, 2012, a day after he was told for the first time he had a problem with his heart. That day he chose to leave was his wedding anniversary. It was also Nigeria’s Independence Day. Since then, the day has assumed a larger than life image for you. Two of your books have been released on that day.

The voice of Ligali Mukaiba is all it takes for you to be back to Epe, see its streets, have that feeling of walking into the sea when trekking on any side of its ring road, salivate for a taste of its fresh sea foods and crave its ikokore delicacy.

Mukaiba, an apala singer, was and still is its most known musician decades after he breathed his last. His songs sinking into you through an earpod this evening reminds you also of your maternal grandfather. You remember how he used to put you on his lap each time you visited and how he used to call you his father because you are supposedly a reincarnation of his own father, the one they called Agbomeji. You remember the family house in Oke-Balogun, its mud walls, its tattered floors, its rustic look, the secrets it keeps and the remains you were told were interred on its grounds, even in rooms that bear no sign that bodies of ancestors are laid there.

The voice conjures imageries of cows mooing, cats meowing, sheep bleating, bulls bellowing, ducks quacking, horses neighing, geese cackling, chickens clucking and peacocks screaming in corners of the town renowned for fish and Quranic education.

Mukaiba reminds you of Epe and its illustrious sons. From Chief S. L. Edu, once listed by Time Magazine as one of the richest men in Nigeria, to Michael Otedola to Prof. Femi Agbalajobi, who tried unsuccessfully to become Lagos governor, and to Akinwunmi Ambode, the one who collapsed ancestral walls and sacred landed property to give his hometown a befitting road network.

You also remember those times with your paternal grandmother, Iya Alate, at Ayetoro market, where you learnt to hawk groceries during vacation. The voice reminds you of your many Ileya festivals in Epe, of the ram-fighting competition at Epe Recreation Centre, of the ram slaughtering, boiling, frying and eating, of the new Naira notes uncles and aunts gifted you in the spirit of the season and of an era wrestled and conquered by time.

Each time YouTube supplies you ‘Stand Well Well’ and other early 90s songs of Lagos Island Fuji music star Musibau Alani, memories of your six years in secondary school torture you. They were spent away from home and from your parents, except on the few occasions you were home for holidays. You were free and many of your seniors and juniors misbehaved: sex, cigarettes and a few even tried Marijuana. You had strict housemasters and housemistresses, but despite that those who wanted to be bad found a way to be. Your school was surrounded by bushes and many escaped to smoke and do all sorts. Classrooms at night were also dark enough for shenanigans.

As far as your parents were concerned, you were in strict hands and were bound to be of good behaviours, but there were instances when the teachers who were supposed to keep you all upright were the ones sleeping with the girls, many of them between 15 and 16 years, and the ones who refused were targets of punishments. At least three of the girls are now wives to their ex-teachers, one even wrote the Senior School Certificate examination pregnant for your housemaster. You only knew when she was delivered of a baby some six months after completing her studies.

Now, your phone Playlist is treating you to Lara George’s ‘Ijoba Orun’. You become sober. Your head swells, your tear duct seems to open and you are suddenly seized by the quest to be holy as you prepare for life in the hereafter. It does this to you each time you listen to it. It has done so since it was released over a decade ago. Sinach’s world famous ‘Way Maker’, Ayewa Gospel Singers ‘Amona Tete Mabo’ and some Tope Alabi’s songs give you similar vibes.

Lara George is reminding you that money can’t take you to heaven, your car can’t either. And neither can a spouse nor a friend. Only following God’s path can and you long to be pious, to be in this world but not of this world. But you fear that once the music stops, the world and its iniquities will not give up easily on you. And it dawns on you that life is an ever-continuing battle you can only win if you guard your heart jealously.

 

 

 

 

Read Previous

Foundation trains 50 youths in CBT exam techniques

Read Next

Ojelabi to Nigerians: together we can achieve greatness

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Most Popular