Pink Friday.

Okay, I'll admit it. Things have not been going as smoothly as I envisaged, nay, hoped. I mean, by my peri-yuletide calculations last year, my recent single was gonna blow me up, Al Quaida style! I was gonna be the hot new thing that EVERYBODY was gonna be talking about. I was gonna be a perennial trending topic, a "TT" for the "tweeps". (okay, don't ask!) My music was gonna be right up there with ozone layer depletion, arab spring, and Michelle Obama's new summer frock as matters which were the very definition of the year 2011.

And I knew I had to get rid of some excess baggage, y'know, in preparation for my new life. Nothing too much, just y'know, the frivolous stuff which won't be compatible with my noveau riche rap megastar lifestyle. For instance, my two stressful and strenuous menial, low-paying (but emphasis on "PAYING"!!!) medical jobs. I mean, I couldn't be a super celebrity while holding a 9 to 5 (or more accurately, an 8 to 4, then a 4 to 10) just for a few coins. I mean, one good show will give me a whole month's salary, right?
Right! *tongue in cheek*

I mean, when I started blogging, I was expecting to write a just few background posts, y'know, about my history, then my philosophies on love, life and lyrics, and when you get a good idea of who I am y'know, pre-stardom, I'd dive headlong into the good stuff. I was hoping to give y'all little factettes about my life in showbiz like...

"Met Tiwa Savage today, just as cute as she looks in her music videos. She must have mistaken me for 'Brymo' because I could tell as soon as she met me that she was 'feelin da boi yeah, feelin' da, feelin' da boi yeah, yeah...' "

Or, "Bumped into Eva tonight. She had some dude doubling as her bodyguard and manager. The moron probably thinks the term 'division of labour' is a pre-employment maths quiz. Still, she ditched him because she wanted to just hang out with me and explore my mind, intellectual that she is. We ended up exploring a whole lot more..."

Y'know, just the simple things that happen in every hot rap star's life...

"Was in the studio when MI and Jesse stopped by. They had heard about me and came prepared to battle. I just gave 'em one of my 2002 verses and they were so nonplussed, MI had to scream out 'Lace, you're the greatest!!!'
I just had to accept the title, because he was not going to take false modesty for an answer.
And by the way, short black boy? TINY black boy would be more accurate...!"

Nothing too elaborate, nothing too deep, nothing too tasking. Just my day to day life as a megastar. Even my boring days would have been interesting to blog about...

"Slow week it's been. I'm meant to have hooked up with Goldie, but she too dey form diva. Anyhoo, I'll just drown my boredom in Dubai. Heard they have a couple of new hotels I won't mind exploring. Wonder who I should take along..."

You see? Just a few sentences would have had you on the edge of your seat, craving my next post.
But, with the way things are, you'll be stuck with tales of my fondness for trekking, my sugar mommy choices, and my stance on social issues like abortion (No, most times), plastic surgery (Yes, most times) and premarital sex (No comment. But why say no when you can say yes?)
*shrugging*
Sorry...

Reality talk now. So, being the man that I am, as soon as I found that music was not bringing in as much cash as I hoped ("As much"? Try "ANY"!!!), I did what every parent sent their child to school for: dusted out my certificates and went back to my stressful and strenuous menial, low-paying (but emphasis on "PAYING"!!!) medical work.

But, to express my emancipation, my rebellion against "the system", I was going to fight 'The Man' in a different way:
Y'see, when I was younger, I used to go to the hospital in Timbs, Jeans and Tees. I was always so gleeful to see the looks of shock on my patients' faces when they found out that the doctor they had waited for, for 45 minutes was this grubby unkempt yuppie ('Yo-Pee' in nigerian english), who seems to still be in diapers.
I loved to change their opinions of me (well, at least, MOST of them) over the 15 minute course of our 'consultation', giving them the need to say, in parting, "Thank you, you're a wonderful doctor. If only you could dress more 'decently'..."

Now, I had been previously intent on remaining in a state of adult age adolescence as far as fashion was concerned, until I needed a job. And to get a job, I needed to be in a suit. I knew that much. So I wore a suit for my interview.

(But my job-hunt is not the reason for this post: I went cap in hand, well, figuratively, to my former offices who were already tired of being besieged daily by patients who wanted to see their 'oyibo' doctor, they were all too glad to give me my old job back!)

But after the interview, I found out I was all dressed up with nowhere to go. So I did what I usually do when I'm bored: (No, not go to Dubai, that was me DAYDREAMING!) I went on a stroll. And the lesson I learnt from that particular stroll is this:
Women just LOVE a guy who is dressed formally!
I mean, I practically had girls throwing phone numbers, bb pins, home and email addresses and loads of other privy information at me as I took that walk!

I'd be darn stupid if I didn't make that lesson useful in my life!

So I decided that I will continue my fight against "the system" fashion-wise, but no longer with the use of informal clothing in a formal setting. I was gonna dress formally, but in colors that were gonna be so angry that "the man" would think a riot was in progress; colors that were so loud that "the man" would wear earmuffs!

And so I did.

Well, last Thursday, I went to my afternoon job in a pink shirt, and just because I can, a pair of pink loafers. I got everyone's looks of shock and surprise like I'd been hoping for, but didn't know it was for a different reason.

Time was going to tell.

I had forgotten I was meant to be on night duty that night at a different hospital where I do locum work. At the last minute, I was reminded, so I went to the other hospital looking like the medical pink panther in black pants.
Intending to leave my night duty post by 8am on friday morning, I received a phone call by 7:50am, just 10 minutes before closing, to remind me that I had to make a court appearance that friday morning, and that my transportation was waiting for me in front of the hospital!

So there I was, in bright pink on a bright morning, headed to a court room to see the Nigerian Legal System at work.
I was in for the shock of my life!

Well, long blogpost short, I noticed a lot of strange looks from all the legal minds in the court room, and thought nothing of it until a lawyer who claimed to have gone to my university (I didn't recognise him) walked up to me and introduced himself, giving me an overly long hand shake. While he shook me, he magically seemed to extricate one of his fingers, and rubbed the tip of that finger repeatedly against my palm...

The gesture had me feeling molested, but I was in too much of a shock to do anything more than leave my hand limply in his. It took me a while to figure out, but that, ladies and gentlemen, was the homo handshake!

At first, I tried to rationalise, "this guy says he knew me in school, is it that he didn't see me with bevies upon bevies of fine girls?" Then I considered his point of view:
Women feel the most comfortable with gay guys because they know there's a zero chance of getting jumped on. With all the different girls I was seen with in school, most of whom knew each other, I must have been either (a), a very slick player, or (b) GAY!

And, apparently, I didn't get the memo that, along with left- (or is it right?) sided ear studs, an encyclopaedic knowledge of 90s britpop, and the high-pitched 'Hellooo', NOTHING yells out, "I'm GAY and I'm coming out the closet!!!" louder than a pair of bright pink shoes on a man!

Ol' boy, the only reason why I did not take off all pink items of clothing I had on me right then and there was the fear that it might prove irresistible to the dude, and I might get a traumatic assault on my hemorrhoids in front of magistrate, prosecutors and defending counsel!

I darn sure know how to leave 'well' alone. (Before someone helps turn it to a 'bore-hole'!)
No, thank you very much!

And so, I'm sticking to the Jay-Z slogan for now, man: #AllBlackEverything!
You can't go wrong with that!

Its Your Boy,

LACE,
Fly Fellow, y'all!

Life For Rent

My hairs stand on end like an electrocuted dog's would, whenever I hear a certain Dido song.
The lyrics seem to hit quite close to home.
Ironic, because they actually deny the existence of such a thing in my life.
Either way, I always sing along with gumption and gusto:

"I haven't ever really found a place that I call home,
I never stick around quite long enough to make it..."

Okay, but who am I kidding? I know I have.
As a person who spent 8 years in medical school (and by extension, in Enugu state) without enough funds to do anything more than breathe and on the rare occasion eat, I had NO CHOICE, the Coal City was my home for a quite a good while!

You see, I got into University a tiny 15 year old who was proud of his academic achievements pre-tertiary education, but was unwilling to work hard enough to garner any further laurels. After all, nobody (except for my immediate family and my secondary school academic staff) really cared how smart I was.

In a way, I felt experienced: I already knew what it felt like to be top of your class when push comes to shove.
But I had gotten into university hoping to get to know what it felt like to be on top of, er... other things. Hopefully, with a lot of pushing and shoving too!

But psychologically, somewhere at the bottom of my mind, I found it hard to commit.
(Though not to exhilarating phenomena like "love": I always wanted to experience that. I grew up thinking I was unworthy of any positive affection so I practically threw myself into love with anyone who, in my estimation, seemed to have walked out of a fairytale, hoping that said real-life princess would kiss this green-eyed but brilliant frog into princely stature and comportment!)

Rather, I found it hard to commit to friends, to fellowships, to classrooms, schoolwork, assignments, a career...

Bottomline, I found it hard to commit to a future.
Because, what is a future if not the sum total result of the actions carried out in the past?

I never really took up chess. I was scared to lose to better players. And I had already heard of 5 year old chinese maestro chess players. I didn't want to be humiliated. So I stayed playing with amateurs, sticking to being the gargantuan piscean in a minute mere.

I tried taking up basketball for a few minutes. But being small, nerdy, unpopular, cross-eyed, and having poor eye-hand coordination did little to ensure the longevity of such a venture.

I never really committed to The Abiding Word Gathering, a school fellowship of like minded souls that I had stumbled unto: I didn't like the intrusions and the regular, constant unsolicited advice and the having to call everyone 'brethren' and being answerable to elders, pastors and the like.

I did not stay with AIESEC, an international organisation that I had joined in my early years in University. Partially because the branch on my campus was suspended for a while, but mostly because I DETESTED the dreadful nickname they gave me.

I didn't seek out people to be in my 'crew'. I even resisted those who sought to roll with me. I was gonna hand pick the coolest dudes, when the time was right.

Just not right now.

I didn't ever want to lose.
I wanted to be the best (and more specific, I wanted to be WITH the best).

And in so doing, I would say I killed a certain part of me before it was even birthed. An abortion in so many ways.

Because normal people play games that they occasionally win and lose, normal people hang out and befriend other normal people. Normal people joined fellowships, clubs and what-not. Normal folk did a whole lot of stuff that normal folk did.
But I refused to.
It was almost as if I felt I was abnormal and had made a subconscious decision and more than a few repeated and overt attempts to stay that way.

So I was lucky that music found me.

Truthfully though, it can be said that we found each other.
I was just this kid who had so much bewilderment, so much pain, so much angst. Nothing could soothe me more than music that moved me.

I never saw myself as anything more than a lonely little kid, stuck in a drab room, slaying his inner demons by straining his vocal cords to keep up with the powerfully sustained notes of Celine Dion's rendition of "All By Myself"...
I never saw myself as anything more than someone who loved music so much that he could sing along to EVERY song that played on the radio (at the time) word for word, note for note, ad-lib for ad-lib.

It just so happened that I ended up being friends with people who will end up being some of the biggest artists in Nigeria, though we didn't know it at the time.

It just so happened that I had memorised the rhymes I had been doodling in my notepad and once, when called to 'rap' for some guy who 'heard that I can', spat out some lyrics that I am rather ashamed of (at least, right now), but which had the effect of driving him ecstatic.

It just so happened that that guy eventually became a 'Director of Socials' in my school. And he did all he could to make sure I performed at every social event he could create.

And to some extent, I did commit.

...

So, at the end of the day, it IS funny.
How we never see things coming, but we find out, when they do, that this is EXACTLY what we have been waiting for all our lives.

But the question is, "why wait?"

That Dido song is, in my opinion, trying to say that we should embrace life and not live it like it is for rent. Else we would deserve nothing more than we get.

Much as I agree with the morals of the song, I however believe that our lives ARE for rent.

Only thing is, our Land-LORD actually EXPECTS that we live it to the fullest.

That way, He never regrets giving it to us in the first place.

So, people, let's go out and LIVE...
NOW!
'Cos there's no time like the present.

It's your boy,
LACE
Fly Fellow, y'all!

'Axe' your "Mummy"

Okay. So I am something of a small time celebrity at this point. I mean, I have all of 210 facebook fans, two-thirds of which are actually my facebook friends who I conned into 'liking' my, er, 'music page', www.facebook.com/LACEdaFlyFellowMusicPage. (Officially, facebook calls it a "fan page" but if I call it that, my friends may not look too favorably on the idea of signing up to being plain old Leslie Ezeoke's "fan", and might actually only 'like' the page just so they can post spam and hate mail on my wall! I sure know how to leave well alone!)

I also have a nice little low budget (but rather effective) music video which has started playing on a lot of tv stations (Yes, to my astonishment, even MTV Base! With my second consecutive video release on limited MTV airplay, I must have set some sort of record in my local government area, or in my village at the very least!) I cannot describe the warm fuzzy feeling I get when I get pinged every once in a while by people saying "I am watching your video on soundcity (or some other station). Nice one!"...
"Warm?"
"Fuzzy?"
Hey, what do you know? I CAN describe it!

But the thing about me that people should know, is that I have a certain habit which I doubt can be changed by anything short of phenomenal stardom. That habit is this:
I love to walk!

"Walk?" some people are wondering, incredulous and disappointed that I have nothing more sordid, suspicious or sinister to share. But you don't understand. This is not walking like, y'know, putting one leg in front of another to get from the living room to the bathroom when one is drunk and understandably uncoordinated. This is (to quote Coach Calhoun from 'Grease', my favorite childhood movie), "long... distance" walking, "cross... country" walking!

I mean, I once took a girl on a date and, when she got tired of us walking back from the restaurant to "where I parked my car", it still took her a hundred naira bike ride to get to the parking spot (which, it turned out, was at my house! Either the car drove itself back home, or I walked all the way to the joint! In my defense, I'd say I have never really trusted that vehicle in the first place. For a so-called japanese car, it consumes more fuel than Charlie Sheen does alcohol in a hill-billy wine tasting carnival!)

But really, I have crossed cultural barriers, time zones, even climactic regions on these feet. And one thing I can tell you is this: whoever wrote the song "these boots were made for walking" was not talking about standard-issue Timberland boots! I mean, 2 hours of trudging and I'd have turned any brand new pair of 'timbos' into slobbering Pavlovian canines: tongues hanging out and looking hungrier than somalian children in a united nations poster.

And the reason I like to walk is that it brings me as close as possible to other people's reality. (That and the fact that there's a higher possibility of bumping into a girl I'd like.) I get to see things I wouldn't ordinarily see if, instead, I had driven from point A to B. I guess I can say trekking simply keeps me (and, sadly, the soles of my shoes) very well uh, 'grounded'.

And that brings me to the topic at hand: a few days ago, I was just minding my business, y'know, doing my usual footwork, trying to get from A to B when someone shouts my name. Now, if the person had said "Doctor!" I'd have known it was someone I should quickly tell "I'm sorry, I'm rushing to work, all enquiries should be forwarded to my office and we'll do our best to get back to you within 10 working days..." But instead, this person shouted "LACE!" and at that point, I did what any self respecting recognition-thirsty upcoming musician in search of self-validation would do: I stopped and waved.

Long story short, dude walked up to me and commenced the absolutely futile task of making me remember who he was and where it was that I had met him. I scrutinized him up and down, from head to toe, and nope, he did not have a pair of stunning knockers. How he expected me to remember him while he was lacking such a vital prerequisite was beyond me! Anyway, just when I was about to get bored of our discourse, he said "Saw your video, nice job!"
Well, that bought him another 5 minutes of my time.

He made good and ample use of said time to inform me that, upon reviewing my music career, (as far as he could see), the only thing that separates me from established acts is the fact that I don't have a sugar mummy! He went on to inform me that every big male artist has one. (For reasons best known to my legal counsel, it is not in my best interests to name anybody. Something about libel and liberty of speech or some other legal nonsense...)
Well, I am allowed to cough, right? And if my cough sounds reminiscent of words like "Darey" and "Soul E", I cannot be blamed, can I?
I should think not!
*coughs*

Now, I like sugar (and even mummies) just as much as the next man. I might even like giving certain kinda mummies a certain kinda sugar even more than most.
But for me to get a sugar mummy? That is just awful!

I mean, I have promised myself that the lowest I'll ever stoop is to become a porn star. After all, somebody DID say I should find a job that I enjoy and I'll never have to work a day for the rest of my life!
But for me to get a sugar mummy? That is just awful!

Call me idealistic, but wouldn't the whole point of being a rap star be to become so rich and famous that you can bag glamorous women?
Now this dude, in a vain attempt at becoming chummy with me, is trying to advise me to bag glamorous women, in order to become so rich and famous that I can then become a rap star!? That is putting the cart ahead of the horse if you ask me!

Besides, it didn't work for Mr Kevin Federline (nee Spears, lol,) so it DEFINITELY wouldn't work for me!

But given time to adjust to the idea and recover from the er, culture shock, there actually might be something to his advice. After all, women have been climbing to the top for centuries simply by letting men climb on top of them.

And the balance of nature has had to find a new pivot: So many women have climbed to the top that, in the grand scheme of things, the average lad is at the lower rungs of the ladder, while the average lady is exactly where they have always wanted to be. On top.

Would it be so wrong for me to do the natural thing, what every endangered specie facing adversity in the course of time and space has done? Try to adapt?

So what if adaptation means finding a sexual partner who might not exactly be to my physical specifications? (I mean, for a guy who literally dated his right hand until he turned 16, I shouldn't be too picky, should I?)

If it means that it helps me find a little lubrication in this hard, rough adventure I call my life, it should be worth it, shouldn't it?

I had been so tortured by the decision-making process that, last night, I had a dream (or was it a nightmare?) Anyway, during what we doctors call rapid-eye-movement sleep last night, I was chanced to be close to an overnight Nigerian music superstar and I was asking for his take on my newly found dilemma: "To be or not to be (with a sugar mummy...)?"

Why this warped, crooked, labyrinthine brain of mine had to have me asking a little kid for advice on love matters, (no matter how much of a 'whiz' he is), is just beyond me.
But I guess my dream must have gotten a lot of the dynamics of my dilemma mixed up.

Because, as soon as I asked the young man the troubling question:
"So what do you think? Should I get a sugar mummy?"

All the moron could come up with was this:
"Oya, axe your mummy... Toh badt gon!!!"

Needless to say, I woke up in a hurry!

Its your boy,
LACE!
Fly Fellow, y'all!

On Second Thoughts

Being the best next thing is not always easy. I mean, yeah, you got talent; yeah, you got skills; yeah, you are creative; yeah, you make it 'look' easy.
But, let me be straight with you: believe me, it isn't. And the "why so" boils down to an aphorismic Nietschzean philosophy:
You are good only because PEOPLE say you're good.

"Well, that SHOULD be easy," you might think, "getting people to say you are good, especially if you actually are..." But if you believe that, you are still a novice at understanding human psychology. First of all, it shows that you are completely unaware of all the processes that occur beneath the surface before people actually talk about something: They have to observe it, process it, and be impressed by it before they can ever express it.

This, I have seen, can get cut short at any point in the train of events which lead to a personal endorsement. For instance, let us say one is trying to get the approval of a 'normal guy'. Let's say its a song you want him to listen to on the internet. He just started listening to (observing) the song, when suddenly there is power outage, network failure, or even more effective, he starts thinking of a girl he likes. He is NEVER EVER gonna finish observing your masterpiece. Or whatever it is.

But say he does finish watching, reading, listening, tasting (or even smelling) your masterpiece and he is processing it, trying to decide whether he is impressed or not when suddenly he gets hungry, or a pop-up inviting him to 'watch free porn' appears, or his boss summons him to explain his use of company hardware for personal entertainment, or even more effective, he starts thinking of a girl he likes... He is NEVER EVER gonna finish processing your work in his brain. Or whatever he has.

But say he does process it and is reasonably impressed, and wants to express his approval. And just when he is about to tell his friends, he gets hungry, or his boss summons him to explain his use of company property for personal pleasure, or even more effective, he starts thinking of a girl he likes... I bet you can see where this is going.

Easier said than done, people say. And I guess they are right, because the only thing harder than 'saying' something is 'doing' something. Talk is cheap, you'd say, but you'd be surprised at the myriad possibilities that open up when the right words are said.

Don't believe me? What do you think brought the great (or so I have heard) Ben Carson into the public consciousness? You think it was his 'gifted hands'? Trust me, it wasn't. Gifted tongue is much closer to it! His ability to cut a skull open and staple it shut probably would have passed unnoticed had he not the presence of mind to present it in written/spoken word as a present to any audience present.

Also, the incumbent president of the United States was an absolute rookie in the world of politics and, come to think of it, even law (at least, compared to one of my favorite human beings of all time, Hilary Rodham Clinton) before his election, but like we all got to see, he could talk circles around almost anyone and anything that he was up against. And we believed his word. So we, (and I speak as a member of the pseudo-american community, which encompasses everybody that is not an official citizen of "God's own country", and due to some neglect in their constitutional due process, are therefore ineligible to vote), we all (kinda) rooted for him to win.

Wait a minute! "God's own country"? This is a country with terribly heavy taxation on the poor, without universal health care, and one that publicly accepts homosexuality yet publicly reviles christianity! Yet we look up to them, affect their mannerisms and follow both their presidential elections and impeachments with the longing eyes of a beggars' child in a candy store! What is the reason we are in love with America?
Word.

Yep. Word is powerful, but whose word do people believe? I mean, for Christians like myself, any word from the devil, realistic as it may seem, is automatically a lie. And any word from God, implausible as it may sound at the time, is law.
And for a while, it started to seem that the only person who people collectively listened to and obeyed more than the Almighty Himself, (who they pretty much ignore these days anyway), was the great Oprah Winfrey (God bless her soon-to-be-retired soul)!

Which brings it all back to me. I have started to think that one of the most hare-brained ideas I have ever had was taking my music seriously. (I mean, come on! Who am I fooling? Oprah doesn't even like rap. Who is gonna tell the whole world on my behalf to "goooo aaannnddd bbbuuuyyy tthhiiiss aaalllbbuummm" and make them hurry as fast as their zombie legs can carry them to do so? Will you, my dear reader? Hit me up if you will and can. Lol.)

That brings me to the second most hare-brained idea I have come up with: starting a blog!
I mean, a virtually unknown musician/doctor starts writing a virtually unknown and, in the words of an ex-girlfriend, 'penniless blog' in order to publicise his virtually unknown music? How dumb was that? Did I even stop to think of what it would take to garner a following of people who will hang on my every (written) word, in order to coerce them into hanging on my every ('rhythmed') word? Wait, don't answer, those questions were rhetorical!
(Besides, I like to think of myself as a pretty brilliant chap. Anything less, and it might be impossible for me to sleep at night!)

And sometimes, it feels like I should just let go of the dream. Because, as I have come to learn, it is not so much about how good you are, it is about who you have on your side. Your team. And honestly, it feels like I've been pretty much a 'one man army'.

And just when I am about to tire and give up, I go to study the one thing I know it is, that will give me the advice that is both timeless and rivetting... (Okay, well, yes, the Bible too. But that is not what I was talking about)... Now you guessed it right, a disney movie!

And if you've never had a dream, a completely unreasonable hope, a reason to look forward to the future, the closest thing you can get to it is just that. Walt Disney Movies. I dunno 'bout y'all, but they sure awaken that magic that we lose in the experience and expertise which is adult life.

And if you think that is unrealistic and childish, it worked for me! Because, when I realised that music is my love, medicine is my job and 'blogging' is, really, more or less, a hobby, I lost the will to express my thoughts on the web. Especially as the only member of my audience is my cousin, Osama Lee, (yeah! you do deserve a shout-out), who is only a phone-call away (it IS a terribly expensive phone-call, but nonetheless, only a phone-call away), and it all seemed like a waste of precious time and energy.

But the disney movie I watched made me realize that MY strenght is not necessarily in numbers. It gave me the understanding that I am not actually doing what I do just for myself. I am doing it for people who honestly believe in, and love, what I do; people who are touched, no matter how infinitessimally (oh, I love that word!) by my smattering of words on a pc screen; people who I cannot let down.

So what if those 'people' are just my (singular) cousin?

...And, when he gets married, perhaps his wife and, hopefully, 9 children? (I do have to imagine an amount of offspring that will be in keeping with his libido, his common sense and my desire for a viewership of up to 10 readers! Lol.)

So what?

The show, nevertheless, must go on!

So, on that note, it is safe for me to say just one thing:

I'M BACK!!!!

Its your boy,

LACE!
Fly Fellow Y'all!

A Plastic World

Ever noticed how people who are beautiful (or extremely sexually attractive) act like normal rules and regulations don't apply to them?
Like when they step into a room, even time, who waits for no one, either stands still or moves at such a snail's pace that everything seems to be moving in slow motion?
Like when they are interviewed for a job, it doesn't matter if they are less qualified, all that matters is if there is someone more attractive than they are vying for that position, and if their employer is of the opposite sex?
Like, when they happen to be hanging out with another human being who is far less attractive than they are, they seem apologetic to the rest of the world, like "I'm sorry, but I'm this kind hearted soul who sees more to people than their looks..." Have you ever noticed that? I have.

Some people say "It's a Man's world" others say "It's a woman's world". I'd say all of those people are wrong. It's a beautiful world. And it belongs to the beautiful. The people who control the world (male OR female) will always defer to people of the opposite sex (what am I saying? With the almost universal acceptance of homosexuality, I have to correct myself) I mean, to people of ANY sex who they find attractive. And as a result, the value of being beautiful increases.

Why? One has to pause and ponder, why is beauty so important? Why is it so much in demand? If you have ever stopped to look at a sunset, with its awesome bronze rays transforming into hues of indigo, painting a landscape golden red; if you've ever stopped to admire the intricacies and inhale the fragrance of a flower; if you ever felt that rush, that feeling of being given a glimpse of the artistic capacity of the almighty, you will understand. You might be unable to explain it, but you'd definitely understand.
Pleasurable sounds, aromas, tastes or tactile sensations have become so commonplace, almost mundane (or at least, man-made) to us all.
No big deal. Play the song again, spray some air freshener, have the meal again, and touch it one more time. Easily achievable.
But when you SEE something beautiful, it is a gift, a touch of divinity. A beautiful sunset, a beautiful flower, a beautiful person.

Let me put it in perspective for you. It takes a gifted painter a few weeks, at the very least, to simulate a sunset as beautiful as the one God creates every single day. It takes florists same amount of time, precision and care to bring forth a bouquet of roses, amethysts, chrysanthemums or any other exotic sounding flower one can remember. But people, the beautiful ones, are born each day. And the almighty doesn't even bother to sign his signature on their lovely, delicate behinds. He gives us his own beauty free of charge.

And we are awed by it. By beautiful people, or by their close relations, very sexy people. We cannot (easily) control ourselves in their presence. We are drawn. And they know it.
"Sorry officer, silly me. I thought the speed limit was 50 MILES per hour, not kilometers. Thanks for the last 5 times you let me off without a speeding ticket. I promise, I really do, that I won't break the speed limit again..."

And if you are as selectively ambitious as I am, you get to a stage when being with desirable people is no longer a good enough ambition. You want more. You want to be desirable yourself. They, after all, don't have two heads (and if they did, they wouldn't be desirable in the first place)! And this, I guess, is where everybody's opinions diverge.

We all know looks are, to a very large extent, God given. But then again, so is rain, fire, earthquakes and the like. And the truth is, some people (myself included), as far as looks go, are natural disasters. Too fat, too thin, knock-knee'd, crosseyed, doggone, awfully ugly people. Its not an insult, just a statement of fact. The insult, actually, would be to look such a person in the eye and lie to his/her face that (s)he looks like an angel when (s)he looks closer to what one's imagination of a demon would be!

In university, I had this habit of calling EVERYbody "fine GERL" or "fine BWOY" (especially as I noticed that it kept most people too pleased to notice that I don't know or remember their names). And I guess it caught on. So guess what happened one day when my excessively boisterous final year room mate goes on a "fine BOY/GERL" screaming spree? No need to guess, I was there, I'll tell you.

Mr Rex (okay, he should be DR Rex by now) and I were walking through the environmental science faculty building one day and he was just being his normal noisy self, ejaculating greetings to all and (distant) sundry: "Heeeey! Fine bwoy! Wetin dey?" "Fine gerl, how far na?" when an excessively tall, excessively thin (I think the word 'lanky' would just not fully depict this), heavily bespectacled young man, with startlingly asymmetrical facial features and bepimpled, pockmarked skin came walking in our direction. He had his hand outstretched in greeting and I guess Rex did not look too closely. At this point, time seemed to have slowed down, because I saw the ensuing actions in slow-mo... Rex just raised his own hands and brought it down in an exuberant handshake, at the same time bellowing from the bottom of his lungs {sorry, spellings adjusted for slow motion} "heeeeeyyyyy, ffffffiiiiinnnnneee bbboooyyyy!!!" and a 'clap', the sound of palm meeting palm.

I swear, time stood still! The whole faculty seemed to stop and stare. It was like there was an anomaly in the time-space continuum threatening the very fabric of our existence! Everybody froze, including Rex and the unfortunate fellow, hand in hand. At least, the dude had the presence of mind to let out a surprised, embarrassed chuckle. That seemed to restore order, or at least placate the bewildered, upset crowd. "It must have been a mistake..." I could almost hear them thinking while the fellow dragged my roommate to a corner.
"What was he telling you?" I asked Rex when he walked back towards me, looking much more somber this time.
"Meen! I bin no look the guy before I yarn oh..." He replied, already recapturing some of his dissipated animatedness, "...Him just tell me say, 'Guy abeg, ABEG! No call me fine boy again!' "

And it is not fair, if you ask me, that another human being is, from birth, put on a lower pedestal than others just because of the way he looks. But truth is, life is not fair. I don't, however, care about that. What I do care about is DOING something about that.

Now the problem (to me) is that some people feel that because you were born with your looks the way you are, you should leave 'well' alone and do nothing about it. Well, you were born with a slimy green placenta dangling from your belly button (I KNOW SO, I am a doctor, remember?) but I don't see you walking around with an ugly dried up 20 something year old placenta, do I? Good!

So I am interested in finding a solution, and I think I have...

But,

This post has been so long that I might as well make it another series.
So...
Guess I'll see ya next week.

Its your boy,
Lace.
Fly Fellow Y'all!

The Season of Love (Part 3)

So one of my favorite jokes of all time goes (something) like this: A lady sent a request to a dating agency asking for a man, but with 3 important preconditions: (a), he cannot ever beat her, (b), he cannot ever run away from her, and (c), he must be fantastic in bed. After a surprisingly long amount of weeks had passed without response from the agency, she had given up on finding 'love' and had gone back to her normal boring life.

Then, one day while doing the dishes, her doorbell rang. At the door she found a strange man without arms and legs sitting in a wheelchair on her porch.
"What do you want?" she asked the man in obvious exasperation.
"The agency sent me in response to your ad." he responded rather complacently.
"It can't be," she retorted "you are nothing close to what I asked for!"
"Indeed I am," came the reply, "I have no arms; I cannot ever beat you, I have no legs; I cannot ever run away from you."
"Yeah?" she asked, barely warming up in the slightest "And are you fantastic in bed?"
He gave her an incredulous look. "How, my dear lady, do you think I RANG THE DOORBELL?!!"

That man, for the brief amount of adolescence I had remaining, joined the ranks of Superman, Michael Jackson and Danny Zuko from 'Grease' as one of my childhood heroes!

Now, I am fully aware that a man would REALLY have to have lost the use of both arms AND both legs to be endowed with male parts of such magnificently monstrous proportions and dexterity, but the joke left me with an impression which I carry, though with much less conviction, till this day:
Give it to her good, and she's yours for life! You can be broke, ugly, paraplegic, hunch-backed, illiterate, stupid... even brain dead. Drop it like its hot, and you ain't never gon' be dropped.

And I must say, I travelled far and wide in order to learn the supreme art of pleasuring a woman. I, of course, had some natural endowments like size and stamina, but still I went all out in the pursuit of knowledge. So I nurtured some additional gifts like seduction, skill, shifting style and spontaneity. And well, what can I say? I have (most of my life) been a very good student.

So, fully armed like a mandingo warrior, I then jumped into this war of nerves called the 'search for Love'. And, if you've read my previous posts, you'll know I have tried quite a few unconventional (and entirely unsuccessful) routes in pursuit of this particularly elusive golden fleece.

Now I know what girls like: My elder brother.
I know what girls want: Money (and my elder brother).
I know, however, that there is not enough money nor my elder brother to go around (although, I must admit, big bro IS doing everything in his power to ensure he meets up with the escalating international demand. LOL. :P )
But for the unfortunate ladies who will never have the pleasure of 'getting' my brother, someone will have to bridge the gap, wouldn't they?
Indeed, someone should!

So, I made it my mission, to give one lucky girl (at a time, at least) what a girl really needs: some good, good lovin'!

It is always good to know your flaws and disguise them, and to know your strenghts and capitalise on them. And I knew that, even though I'd be doing any girl I date a HUGE favor (maybe that should be in plural... just that it won't have the same nuance, though) they would not be able to tell so, from just looking at me.
You see, for those who don't know me, its not that I'm ugly (although some really, REALLY mean people call me that just to hurt my feelings), its just that I'm... er, well, different from the media portrayed 'ideal man'.

So I knew I would have my work cut out for me in order to convince any lady that I got what she needs. And I took it in stride. The truth (and accepting it) had, in actuality, set me free:

So what, if she didn't want to give me her number?
So what, if she doesn't pick my calls?
So what, if she doesn't want to go out with me?
So what, if she doesn't want to come back home with me?
So what, if she doesn't "want to do this"?
So what, if she says 'stop it, I don't like it, I'm serious!'?
So what?

It didn't matter to me, because every single time, with every single person, after I've unleashed and deployed my secret automated weaponry for mass seduction, I can see the surprise, the bewilderment, and the gratitude for a job well done. Usually while she's asleep. (They typically can't stay awake for too long after.) *sigh*

And, with girls that I really liked, I really, really hoped that 'this was it'. True Love. I have given her a glimpse of what she will receive for the rest of her life if we stayed together. And from the way she thoroughly enjoyed it, with the knowledge that, should she say the word, a lot more can, er, 'come' from where the last couple came from, she wouldn't want to lose this, would she?

...


Now, I dunno what it is with these nigerian girls, they just feel that because a guy did all the freakiest things to you in bed, he must not really love you. And, to me, that is just plain crazy talk.
"Girl, did you not see what I just did?! I know it was an out of body experience for you and all, but you WERE there, weren't you?? Do you think I would go out of my way to make sure you get more than enough of this lovin' if I did not love you?!?!"

But, my very doing typically turns out to be my very undoing.
For instance, last year, I dated a lady who, within 1 month of meeting her, had me privately toying with the idea of actually getting married to her... (I mean, she was everything I wanted in a woman, what was I waiting for?) Then, whoosh! She disappeared. Without warning. Just like that.

This, she later told me, was because, in her words, "you and I know you were never gonna marry me, you were just having fun with me!" Wow. She hadn't the slightest idea what I had planned for her.
Or do I talk about the girl before her who had told me 'the only good thing about our relationship is the sex!' Safe to say, she's disappeared too.

I guess what they say about too much of a good thing IS true.
But forgive me if I go overboard in anything that I can do well. I am just overcompensating for my attractiveness (more accurately, my lack thereof) and having to be judged by it.

So, looking back, in this my exhausting search for Love, the only weapon I have not yet tried is lying (but one would have to be a good actor, or at least, a good LOOKING actor to succeed with it. Guess I'll pass). That, and Money.

"Money?" you might ask.
"Money is the root of all evil..." you might think.
"Money can't buy you love!" you might say.

Valid points, but wrong perspective if you ask me. Because the way I see it, love can't be 'bought' in the first place, not with money, not with life, not with anything.
But the bible does say that 'money answers all things', so my plan is simple: make enough money, then ask my money a very singular question: "I've been looking for Love all my life, WHERE IS MY TRUE LOVE?"
I'll be darned if money doesn't answer!

So, the problem is, how do I make that kind of omniscient, eloquent money?
I have a couple ideas.
But the only legal one I can think up right now is through my music. Medicine, for all its respect, is *bleep*!
So it's my music all the way for 2011!

{Speaking of which, I got a new single out available for FREE download, and the video will debut online on 30-03-11
To download it to your phone visit
www.reverbnation.com/lacedaflyfellow

To download it to your PC visit
http://www.facebook.com/LACEdaFlyFellowMusicPage?sk=app_2405167945

We are taking over this year. Just help me 'like', 'share' or tweet about it. So LesGoooooo!}

Forget fronting, I really need love. Therefore, it seems to me...
I really need to make that kind of money, man!

So Let's Do This!

It's your boy,

LACE
Fly Fellow, y'all!

The Season of Love (Part 2)

Love is beautiful. That all powerful emotion that can move one, drive one out of one's mind: delirious, yet enjoying it; hurting, yet unwavering; arousing in one the most noble, the most pure, and the most naïve intentions possible; albeit a side effect of the most awesome feelings of exhilaration ever known to man. This, singularly, is said to be what separates us from other mammals. So much so, that even the coldest human heart has been found to fall prey to this, the overwhelmingly warmest of emotions...

And it is, it seems to me, nearly the most popular word in the world. Used just as frequently as it is misused; maybe used as frequently as the pronouns "I" and "you" (but they probably should not be competing because, technically, they are already the most popular vowels), and a lot of times it finds itself placed irretrievably and uncomfortably between them.

Love, we are taught from infancy, is ALL we need. Love will make EVERYTHING all right. In (nearly) every song, in (nearly) every movie, in (nearly) every sermon. Love! Even atheists, dishevelled and disappointed by the mysterious ways of the Almighty, jaded into disbelief in the impalpable Creator; still find space in their logical, calculating lives for this particular invisible, unexplainable force. It has become so omnipresent and omnipotent in our lives these days that it has been duly summarised that 'God is Love'. Although I wouldn't completely agree with the saying, I can understand why it is said: Everyone from prophets to prostitutes are all trying to attract people to come get some "love". With the way it is almost universally needed, nay worshipped, by any measure, it really can be concluded that "Love IS god".

That said, what do I really, REALLY know of Love?
Not much, it turns out. Each age, each phase of my life brings about a revolutionary revision of my thoughts and expectations towards it. And my (mis)conceptions are still metamorphosizing, if there is such a word.

I mean, as a nerdy little kid, after hearing countless bedtime tales of the underdog/servant ending up with the prince/princess, I started to believe that all I needed to do was sweep floors, wash dishes, do menial labour and generally be kind to animals, insects and the like, and my fairy godmoth- sorry, I mean my fairy godfather would appear and whisk me off to live happily ever after with my princess in a masculine adaptation of the Cinderella story. (Our parents? Geniuses! "Do all the house chores, remember to smile while you are at it, and you will get to marry beautiful royalty." Yeah, right.) Five years and a whole lot of broken dishes later, with no princess charming (or fairy godfather, come to think of it) in sight, I knew I had to change my expectations.

By the time I was in high school, a nerdy little teenager, my attitudes had changed somewhat. All the high school movies I had watched, showing the nerd (wow, like me!) getting the high school princess just by being his brilliant, semi-antisocial self seemed tailor-made for my particular situation. So, I kinda activated my geek mode, became an artist AND a scientist, made sure my extra thick glasses were always handy, made sure I knew all there was to know about everything there was to know, and made sure I graduated top of my class. Well, six years, 9 distinctions, a lot of extra assignments and homework (yet no girlfriend) later, it was clear to me that high school movies would not work for you unless you actually DID look like Josh Hartnett or Leonardo DiCaprio and only wore glasses in order to tone down your excessively glowing attractiveness, not because you really need them to be able to see a book barely 6 inches away from your face! (Just saying.)

However, by the time I got into university, my life changed. I was still little (at least, to start with) and still nerdy. But dammit, I discovered a gift: I could rhyme! And when I grabbed the mike I made all the girls go crazy! Like gooey, cooing, melting "take me with you" crazy!
Man, what would YOU do if it was you? I jumped on every stage I could find! (Even if it was a 'passing stage', second 'stage' of labour, rebound stage of a broken relationship; ANY stage at all, I jumped on it.) And that kinda gave me a steady stream of female 'fans' to choose a life partner from.

Only problem was, it was not only the book of fairytales that I'd read as a child. I'd also read a Bible, and for some inexplicable reason, I had left it with the notion that premarital sex was a no-no. I was gonna save myself (in other words, remain a virgin) for marriage, or at the very least, for true love!
(Yeah. True love. What the hell is that?)

Well, as time passed and I had had a lot of girls in my life but none of them really feeling any strong sense of attachment to me, I knew I had to find out what was wrong. Because, obviously, something WAS wrong: I mean, I will have a girl really feeling my 'steez', but soon as she'd had sex with a sharper guy, she'd disappear from my life, never to return. So with no where else to turn, I turned back to my bible.

Now the Bible is arguably the most 'argued-over' book in history, so don't get ME wrong or decide to agree with me just because I'm a great blogger and you are just, well, you. It is a book you should read, but pray before AND after reading so that the good Lord will minister to you through its words.
(In my defence also, I did not pray before OR after reading the bible on this particular occasion.)

So I rushed to my bible after being hurt that the latest girl that seemed to 'love' me had moved on to be with someone who 'makes love' to her. And I searched the 10 commandments. And I saw no sign of the word 'fornication' there! I could have sworn it had been right beside 'adultery', but IT WASN'T! I rushed through the whole old testament and all I was seeing was the isrealites committing 'sexual immorality with idolators'. That was the explicitly mentioned sexual sin, not fornication! And it hit me like a car with bad brakes, "Perhaps the sin is not to do with having sex in itself, but having sex with people under a covenant or an oath: either to their spouses or to their idols!"
(Let me also say that I did not get past the Acts of the Apostles in the new testament before formulating this particular theorem.)

Reeling in horror at what I had just thought up, I slapped myself in the face. Hard!
"How COULD you have even THOUGHT like that?" I thought to myself, "It's unforgivable, I tell you, UNFORGIVABLE!!! Just think of ALL the hot, nubile young ladies you allowed to get away UNMOLESTED! It's TOTALLY unforgivable!"

So (having allowed a reasonable amount of time to pass in which to forgive myself), I finally thought to myself:
"Okay, in order to keep true love, you need to have sex, right?"
'Right.'
"But if you're gonna have sex you have to do it right, right?"
'Right.'
"You can't make love to a girl and have her telling you that she's moving to some other guy who 'treats' her right (in other words, does her better), right?"
'Right!'
"So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to learn every move, every groove, every trick, every gimmick, every style; I mean, EVERYTHING in the book (and outside it) to make EVERY SINGLE sexual encounter with your girl a historic event in her life, right?"
'RIGHT!!'
"Okay, let's do this!!!"

(To be continued next week in the finale of "The Season of Love")

It's your boy,

Lace.

Fly Fellow, y'all!

The Season of Love (Part 1)

All over the world, there are only 2 holidays which send people into a shopping and gift giving frenzy: christmas and valentine's. Okay, perhaps I should have said "all over the anglophone, francophone and 'china-phone' world". Because in the Arabic speaking parts of the world, such frivolity is totally unacceptable: most arabs are allowed to partake in ONLY one pseudochristian holiday (if any), and Valentines day is, by a landslide, the more popular choice.

"Why?" You might wonder, "what appeal does this festival have over other more symbolic, more factual and altogether more wholesome holidays?" After all, one might think, Valentine's day is not even a 'real holiday'. Well, if you ask me, I'd say THAT is EXACTLY why it is more popular: You see, there's nothing 'holy' about Valentine's, and whatever it is that makes it special does not typically happen in the 'day'!

Personally, I think that the saying that "Sex sells" is absolutely true. And those who can't get it for free simply shrug, exhale, then buy it hook, line and sinker. (The notion or the action, whichever is more palatable to your sensibilities).

Maybe I am being a little too harsh to a holiday which has brought so much joy and happiness (not to mention financial benefits) to so many people. Officially, valentine's day celebrates love. And the vast majority of children beneath the age of 15 and females (of any age who were born into 'aje butter' homes) believe it to be so. Maybe that is why the Valentinian culture has been embraced worldwide; it caters to an insatiable need. A need to be adored, a need to be needed, a need to be loved.

Now, I am no expert on love (but sex? Like it or not, that is what I am a maestro at. An absolute prodigy, I tell you. Trust me, a trial would convince you!) ...Okay, I just had to put that out there (you never know!) but moving on now... Although I am no expert on love, I know for a fact that even the most cold-blooded killer has this feeling of incompleteness, this void which tugs at him or her, ('cos let's face it, women these days have taken the 'I can do better than a man' thing to a whole 'nother level), making them susceptible to Cupid's string propelled missile at least once in a lifetime.

And this season celebrates that vulnerability in a way that only Bill Gates could have dreamt up: by making someone smile all the way to the bank. Unfortunately, that person is not you!

In most of the countries where it is a legal holiday, (and even in the few where it isn't), valentine puts a lot of responsibility on the men. Don't get me wrong, it is hoped that on a special day like this, that the females will deem it fit to 'pay in kind', just as a token of the love they feel for their partner, but it is not a given. It is, really, a 50-50 thing. (20-80 if you are fat, short and ugly!)

The men, however, are expected (as a mandatory requirement) to pay (in cash or, at least, in credit/debit cards) for everything else: flowers, chocolates, presents, a dinner gown (accessories, thankfully, are optional), a dinner reservation, then dinner, then a movie, then a nice hotel room (especially if your 'bachelor's pad' looks as grotesque as a shoulder pad) and at the end, if the lady is so inclined, you're still expected to be good in bed!
"The whole works," ladies call it.
'The whole salary,' I call it!

The only country left out of this financial sadomasochism is Japan. Thanks to a typographical error at some point in the early 20th century when the brave Valentinian missionaries went to preach the good news of love and spending to the unconquered Asians, someone decided to write that 'females' were the ones required, nay expected, to buy the cards, flowers and candy for the males. And so, that is what happens in Japan; females giving gifts to us guys to celebrate Val's.

Can you imagine what that would be like? I can't. But I do imagine that it explains why the average japanese male is expected to live up to the ripe old age of 78.9 years! (compare with the Nigerian male life expectancy of 45 years for some perspective). Let me put it like this, if you were a japanese male and had such a wonderful valentine experience when you were 18, wouldn't you stick around for 60 (yes, sixty) more years for extra servings? I speak for myself when I say it: I would. No brainer.

It's not like I have too much to complain about, it's not like Valentine's day has been too hard on my pocket. Not in the least. Its just that it reminds me of things I want to forget. Because even though I know it is the most financially motivated holiday since the invention of Santa Claus, the rest of the world doesn't.

"You don't have a valentine?" a girl who I typically would find unattractive asks me. I consider her, deciding to look past the acne, blotchy stretch-marked skin and lazy eye. 'She's not so bad', I start to think, 'she might do, might make me look less pathetic if she was with me on Valentine's day. Let them attribute my poor choice to my poor eyesight'. Probably seeing the last glimmer of hope and desperation starting to simmer in my eyes, she continues: "Poor you. And I have to travel for my grandmother's funeral. What in the world are YOU going to do?"

I used to hear the saying 'I'm a lover, not a fighter' and I liked it. Because it gave one some good choices: be romantic or be valiant. Either way, you're a winner, y'know? But ever since I became old enough to be influenced by the spirit of St. Valentine, I have been given one choice only: Be a lover or a loser!

And even I am guilty of such a generalisation: "I want to visit an orphanage on Valentines day." a socially challenged girl I might have the misfortune of knowing might tell me. And at the back of my mind I'd go "Loser! No boyfriend, huh?"

And that gets me to the problem. I have an unnecessarily high standard for falling in love. My dream girl must be at least an 8/10 in a variety of aspects ranging from looks, to figure, conversational skills, taste in music, dance skills, table manners, temperament, sexual prowess... and the list goes on. There is even a portion for academic qualifications and work experience!

Now, the problem is not that my 'dream girl' does not exist, the problem is just that my dream girl, whenever I get to meet her, (and I have met her a couple of times!) has her own idea of who her 'dream man' should be. And it sure ain't me! As an adolescent, I was neither tall, nor dark, nor handsome. Upon entering adulthood, just when I thought I could heave a sigh of relief and say "look, at least I'm tall and I have got a real mean tan", the requirements completely changed!
Total package, the ladies said (which in other words meant 'rich, generous, and any one of the former requirements').
Total bullocks, I said (and that was in no relation to Sandra, the american actress)!

That is one of the reasons why I started this music thing in the first place. It gave me an outlet, a place to paint the world exactly how I wanted to see it. Beautiful. As long as a song I love is playing, (anything from 'Torn' by Natalie Imbruglia to 'With you' by Chris "the boxer" Brown) the world is great and I am flying without wings. But once the songs end and I'm brought down to earth with a thud, I realize I have to make it big.

So that I too can be rich and generous.
So that I too can afford to meet, get and keep my dream girl.
And so that I too can be caught up in all the extravagant silliness which is Valentine's day. Because, it IS about love, after all. How bad can it be?

By the way, I just decided to order "Japanese for dummies" so I can start studying Japanese, you know, just in case.

Because like I said, you never know!

It's your boy,

Lace.
Fly fella, y'all!

In The Beginning...

In the beginning was the word, and it changed the world. It changed everything: "Let there be light, let there be life, let there be love." And that is how it all started: With words. Those mystical building blocks which, put together in different permutations and combinations, can convey a beautifully resplendent variety of messages to the reader.
Now, it might seem rather superfluous to be talking about the awesomeness of words in a blog. after all, everybody 'loves' to read, right? Wrong. Everyone might love Ray Romano, but not everyone likes reading (the verb, not the town!).
So, armed with that knowledge, I'd have to make my blogs (are they my 'blogs' or my 'posts'?) as short as my (lack of) commonsense and my (cheap @ss) blackberry curve 8520 (or is it 8250?) battery life would allow. I do feel kinda powerful, you know. With just a basic phone, a wonderful application (shout out to Bolt... em, something), and an internet connection, I can be a 'blogger'. I mean, some people do this for a living, man! Blogging! All I need is a few folk to 'like' my blog on facebook and, Boom! I would add the esteemed job description 'blogger' to my already variegated occupations (and that's when the big bucks start rolling in! lol).
And that is the direction that the world is headed, in my opinion. We are all being empowered. To have ideas, to have dreams, to have a voice and to have a dream of voicing our ideas! That is sooo wonderful, isn't it? A world with limitless information, opportunity and supply. So much that one might feel trapped in it. A worldwide web, so to speak.
Well, in my (now humble) opinion, with all of these voices and opinions being aired, EVERYBODY seems to be talking and no one seems to be listening (or, in this case, everyone writing and nobody reading)! A cacophony of disjointed ideas, repeated cliche-d aphorisms and vindictive polemics aimed at no one in particular. Making it harder for the skilled blogger who really, really has something worthwhile to say (y'know, someone like me) to be truly heard and understood.
And the truth is, the 21st century human being does not want to watch and pray. He wants to prey and be watched. He wants to be in the spotlight. At the very least, he wants to be in the spotlight for putting someone else in the spotlight!
And that kinda describes me. Not satisfied with the ecstatic pleasure derived by treating the unwell and the un-well off, (trust me, poverty IS a disease) I have been making music on the side for the past 12 years. I mean, in medical school, I spent a lot more time writing rhymes than writing dissertations, dissecting albums than dissecting cadavers, and being on stage than being in the theatre (you would think they were the same thing, right?) Honestly, I spent more time 'schooling these rappers' than I spent actually schooling. Although in my defense, I did invest a considerable amount of time and energy in the enthusiastic study of both beats (although it was without the use of a stethoscope) and the immediate post pubertal female breast (a very important part of the human anatomy, if you ask me!)
So after 8 long years in medical school... (If you spend 4 years in University, you get a Bachelor's degree, right? Well, I graduated a Bachelor of Medicine AND a Bachelor of Surgery. Two Bachelor degrees, please do the Math!) ...Well, like I was saying, I knew exactly what I was gonna leave university with when I graduate: A double Bachelors Degree Certificate, and a music video!
I had it all planned out. I knew that University would probably be the last time I would ever get so many young, attractive girls in the same place at the same time (especially as I had no plans of going to an Usher Raymond concert anytime in the, as-at-then, immediately forseeable future).
So I went on the prowl, recruiting as many 'video vixens' as my expert oratory (and meager funds) would allow (believe me, very few), visualizing and planning what my music video would be like, and counting my pennies (and my elder brother's), earmarking them for the history-in-the-making event. And as my final examinations neared, I only had one intention: To make a video that would get me airplay on the (then) newly founded MTV Base Africa. (And, well, it would be nice to actually pass my final examinations too, but first things first.)
So I had made my beat (myself), recorded my song (myself), mixed the song (myself, but did not have it mastered; I didnt know how to, and couldnt afford to have a professional do it), I had given it to the (then) fantastic and highly influential Cosmo FM in Enugu who immediately put the song on heavy rotation. As a medical student-slash-rapper-slash producer, I had a top ten song! I immediately started envisioning myself as a Label owner. Fly Fellow Records! Yes sir! And the title described me exactly (if you did not take my looks, my wardrobe or my finances into consideration). It was 2006, and I had conquered Enugu state. All I needed was to make a video that would get me on MTV Base, move back to Lagos, and wait. Because, like I had learnt from my Enugu experience, Talent wins in the end!
Dream on!
Well, I succeeded in making a video that would (really) get me on MTV Base (I am serious, they played my video), I succeeded in moving back to Lagos, I even succeeded in waiting (what has it been, 4 years now???) What I never, however, succeeded in doing, was actually succeeding. Because, you see, this was Lagos, not Enugu. And Talent doesn't win around here, money does.
And so my nightmare began.
But its 2011 and I am waking up, people! This blog is titled the 'best next thing' because, as far as Nigeria and Hiphop goes, that is what I am. And everyone following this blog will be my companions as I achieve that dream. I also might use this as a medium to vent every once in a while, but not to worry, we are together in this. I will share with you all my plans, my schemes, my aims and my dreams. I will even throw in a free song or two here and there (just not today, lol). So feel free to leave a comment and remember to tweet this and to tell your friends and to 'like' it on facebook ('cos remember, that's when the big bucks start rolling in!)
It's your Boy,
LACE!
Fly Fella, y'all!