Blog

The rain started with a rush of wind which slashed open the pots sitting at the edge of the hut. Their covers were displaced as if the wind had been without food for days. It had been like this in my village, Nkwerre, for weeks. It was June, the beginning […]

The first thing Njideka saw when she opened her eyes was her children standing in front of her with wide eyes and mouths bent in a frown. They had been standing there and staring until the sheer force of their sadness woke Njideka up from her deep slumber. Olachi, Njideka’s […]

Abia State was formed in 1991 from what was considered old Imo. Bordered by Ebonyi and Enugu to the north, Akwa-Ibom to the east/southeast, Rivers to the south-southwest, and Imo and Anambra to the west. Abia is known for its areas of oil-palm bush, a tropical rain forest in its […]

The Lijadu sisters saw the future, so much trouble in the streets. There are a lot of introspections going on in the African music scene right now and the youth today are going back to the pioneers. They want to know who originated certain rhythmic and melodic variations. Who started […]

I love Twitter. It’s such a mixing pot of opinions, some I agree with and some I baulk at. I make different sounds of disgust, surprise, glee etc because this is how I react to reading things. My face just won’t make the effort. So there I was scrolling down […]

                                                  KNOCK, KNOCK I never quite learned to knock. It had little to do with upbringing, or courtesy, or even a lack of respect for peoples’ privacies; I simply didn’t learn to knock. Maybe it had something to do with my peculiar left-handedness. Older people told you what hand to […]

 Backseat yarns about the life of a Lagos runs girl. Wazobia FM threw back Christopher Nusa Ohenhen’s hit song “Dupey” on the car radio as Afo drove around the tarnished roads of mainland Lagos. The rhythmic sound of the old school instrumentals boomed softly from the car speakers and Afo […]

‘THERE WERE MANY easy ways to be a stupid girl in Lagos. We were not stupid girls. We were bright with borrowed wisdom.’ Declares Bibike, cementing the Pidgin saying: if you no wise for Lagos you no fit wise for anywhere. No matter how you try to get hold of […]

He didn’t have the same longstanding career or notoriety in the Nigerian Afrobeat music scene, but Nigerian singer, pianist, guitarist and composer Segun Bucknor was just as much of a trailblazer in what came to be known as Afrobeat. This is a brief history of his career. My family was […]