2002/2003 — Baba Ara’s Master Key
It is prize-giving day in Primary 2 or 3, and I am dressed in the sky blue-and-patterned uniform of Premiere Academy, Abuja. I have picked up most of the prizes for first place, and my father, in approval, has taken me to Mr. Biggs to buy rice, chicken, and read Shegs Okoro vs. Real Magrig in “Supa Strikas” comic. Baba Ara and Yinka Ayefele must thank providence for my father, who stacked the car with countless CDs of their music and endlessly looped through them.
This is one of four or five memories of a blurry-faced figure in my head, who would pass on two years later. But before then, he set me on this path by buying me “Gifted Hands,” “Think Big,” and “When the Doctor Is Not Around.” His absence has shaped my present, immeasurably.
2007/2008 — Eldee’s Big Boy
A chance visit to my cousins during their end-of-the-year party, me muttering to them that “I want to attend a school like this,” and voila, I am in the cream-and-blue uniform of Oritamefa Baptist Model School, Ring Road, Ibadan.
One year later, I am struggling with everything. I do not understand the language most people speak. I can’t see the board (it would take seven more years for me to realize I am terribly short-sighted). I am younger than most of my mates and thus smaller, so I am picked on quite a bit. The teachers hate my cursive writing, which was the norm in Abuja schools. I do not understand why I have to wait a year to see my mother and siblings. I am just a troubled kid who is washing his uniform when Splash FM plays this banger with Olu Maintain and Banky W. In those five minutes, everything is right with the world.
2010 — Iyaz’s Replay
I have passed my Junior WAEC with 9 As and 2 Cs. In preparation for senior secondary school (oh, I can’t wait to make bootcut trousers!), we have gone shopping for the Higher Education notes and other materials for school when this sultry voice comes on the radio. I have gotten home and wrapped each note in old newspapers, carefully writing “SS1, Arts Class” on each of them when my mother asks me to present each of them for review.
“Kileleyi? Who said you are going to Arts class? Go and change it before I open my eyes!” she yells.
“But Mummy, I want to be a lawyer!” I angrily retort.
“God forbid you become a lawyer. You lie too easily and creatively. How will you make heaven? Don’t worry, you will go to Science class and become a doctor” she declares. C’est fini.
You see, while I was preparing for Junior WAEC, I gobbled up my brother’s Government textbooks and Literature books. “Purple Hibiscus”? Shakespeare’s plays? All finished before the Intro Tech exam. It only made sense in my head that the only career I wanted was one where I could read — and read — and read all these books that I enjoyed so much. If I had insisted then, perhaps I would have been in chambers today instead of a cold call room in Ogbomoso.
2013/2014 — Sola Allyson’s Iba
I have picked up a form for Physiotherapy at the University of Ibadan and tried but failed the Post-UTME (Thankfully, this is the hand of fate.). So, I am a drifter, left behind by my two closest friends who are now in the aforementioned department, while I am in Jsay, slogging through classes and driven by my father’s threats of having to fend for myself if I fail the next Post-UTME.
Every car trip home makes me full of resentment. After all, I should be in university now instead of being tortured by Sola Allyson’s voice again and again. I go home and lock myself in with the JAMB Past Questions, promising myself not to come out until I get at least 75 in each subject and plugging my ears with “Breakeven” by The Script on my BlackBerry Curve 2.
2020 — Simi’s Complete Me
My ringtone for four years, this song encapsulates the wholeness that is love. A warm embrace. Assurance that someone you love will always be by your side. A body beside you, ensconced in a duvet and matching in all ways but one. The faith to close your eyes and jump because you know someone will be there to catch you. And knowing that there is someone that will set the world ablaze just to keep you warm.
2023— Seyi’s Man of the Year
For me, prayer has manifested in many forms. Loud wailings to plead for my fate from the Lord of the Universe. Desperate mutterings under my breath before Medicine Viva. And more recently, when I knew I was going to lose my mind, in the lyrics of these songs. From questioning His Omnipotence in “Nibo loju re wa, Allahu,” throwing myself prostrate before him in “Saanu mi, Oba Iyanu. You say make I pray o ma dahun,” and positive confessions in “This year na my year.”
2023 — Burna’s Last Last
It is seven to eight months after graduation and I have not seen my friends in so long. Enter South Socials and an opportunity to link up in Lagos. For most of us, we have been yanked away from the safety of university — writing exams, getting inducted and thrust into the tough world of medicine in less than three weeks in all. A lot is wrong in the world but in that moment, we are together, safe in the company of people that are in the same phase — people that get it.
Somewhere on the cloud, there is a video of Babajide, Segun and I on the beach, hands around the other’s shoulders and belting out this song with much gusto.
2024 — Olamide’s Morowore
Perhaps, there is no better encapsulation of my path than the first verse and chorus of this song. It is a flicker of faith in the eye of the storm. A testimony in one breath and a confession in another. Everything has not made sense yet, but there is a sense of a Guiding Hand through it all. Or maybe, like my friend says, I have picked delusion which is good for “ease” at the moment.
Memory is a Very Fickle Thing. Like those corner pieces surveyors place to mark land that has been partitioned, songs are lodestones in my head that pin memories down and prevent them from vanishing into the stream of flotsam that accrues from daily living.
So, I write this because I am scared. Because the weight and aspirations of everyday living are pushing the experiences of my past farther and farther away into the fog. Because clutching onto my experiences and memories with people from my past is like clutching a handful of sand on the beach — the harder you squeeze in order to hold on to it, the faster it slips from my grasp.
This was heavily inspired by Chiemeka Garrick’s “A Broken People’s Playlist”
Originally published on Medium ↗