Expediting Life Itself

I recently stumbled—o.k., not stumbled—read might be more appropriate as the New Yorker Fiction has become a weekly addiction of mine. So in very few words, I wish, I read Egan’s explosive short story Safari. And am still wowed by the effects.

Essentially, it’s a story of a family—a father and his latest girlfriend, with her PH.D in view, his two children—among a group of tourists in Kenya on an expedition of wildlife. It seemed to be an out of life experience for them; Of course because they were whites, and Africa was just vacation and sun enough to tan their skins.

For the father, perhaps it was more than that. Owing to the fact that he is notorious with ladies, he enjoys the ambience and pleasure of a warm flesh next to him, which he could reach out to at any odd hour when sexual intuition gets the better of him. But alarmingly, his latest girlfriend, as subtly as a crush could be written into a story without heralding character bias, is sexually attracted to another.

This story, in the most subtle form, comments on the complexity of the relations and relationship. And surprisingly, gives a tidy ending—something not readily obtainable in the short story form. The unhindered plunge into the future gives the story its denouement, and makes it function as a short story. I enjoyed this story and would recommend it to any reader.

There is no mincing of words, an album like Gongo Aso is difficult to surmount either in artistry, social acceptance or record sales. It is with this caveat that Tradition, the L.P closely following Gongo Aso should be acknowledged.

Kudos must be given to 9ice who worked fervently to make something similar in delivery, as he recruited similar ingredients; but hits are not made, they make themselves. Perhaps this is why Gbamu-Gbamu cannot be another Gongo Aso, although it would pay its dues as a club banger like every upbeat song.

Also 9ice’s attempt to stretch his craft with every album is noteworthy. Certificate is a far cry from Gongo Aso, and only in terms of diversity can Tradition be rated above Gongo Aso. For one, more versatile producers are recruited, the mastering and mixing is top-notch, even featured artists like Germany-based Nneka in Show some love goes a long way to prove that 9ice made a more matured album with a wider catchment at Fanbase.

And if street appeal is being put to question, there is no doubt that 9ice had street in mind as this effort is targeted at all age groups in the street. 9ice’s ambassadorship as a proponent of the Yoruba language is laudable and it has become a style he can be identified with. And he must also be appreciated for the amount of research that would go into sounding African, different.

9ice is perhaps the only Nigeria hip pop artist who puts a flavor of local musical genres like Fuji into his music. But there are some songs that leave more to be desired on this L.P. But all misgivings can be forgiven, as 9ice’s loyalty to his craft is not in doubt.

Plumptre's Livelihood Methods

No Bullshit is an apt title. For sincerely there are no mincing of words or sugar-coating of the truth in this volume to be followed by subsequent issues. It’s the world as it is. Natural and Stark. Indeed it is fluid prose that tackles living in itself with admixtures of commentaries and exposition that still gives room to the place for rhetorics.

Although the view is invariably tilted to a feminine perspective, this book boycotts clichés and the author constantly seeks new ways of re-presenting the mundane. It is fresh both in handling and outlook as what the author seeks to do is carry readers along whilst expressing her opinionated ideas as succinctly as permissible.

And the book is pretty much about anything. Everything. Nothing, even. As it seeks to touch all the details of life. In this, it cuts some bias and some views are slack, vague and even ambiguous but the author is quick to write in a caveat, that the words are essentially hers and the world, which she illustrates, is the one in which she functions.

The book is divided into several monologues tagged “Disclosures”. And each monologues, although uneven in text content, often disclose the author‘s views especially on marriage, relationships, family, sex, friendship, etc. These are often interspersed with poems, titled “freestyles” and some thematic photographic images which depict moods and often hint content at a glance.

No Bullshit is personal as well as artistic, as various art forms are dabbled into to achieve a collagist impression, a beautification of the mundane. It can easily be termed the sophistication of the simple. And Plumptre’s style of prose is exceptionally conversational; the language is accessible, not quite far-fetched, as she picked everyday diction and painstakingly composed them into several personal essays that could have been excerpts of an impersonal diary.

And this book is timely, necessary and should be accepted, even though it enunciates just a single female’s view. Plumptre, although does not cut across as a stereotype female, is an interesting voice that should be heard, as her yearnings, her innermost desires, draws parallels and cuts across the entire female gender.

She often does not proffer solutions and even when she does, she does not force them on her readers. Plumptre essentially wrote this book for herself. In her own words, she wrote that she writes “to simply escape”. She further said she writes because reality is subjective and the ideals only exist for a few moments when we choose to allow it to”. And so readers would do well to subject the ideas espoused in this book to there are own ideals and live by leaving reality to take its hold on them.

The story, story issue.

C.E.O

Dagrin
Chief Executive Omo-Ita (CEO)
Remarkable rapper of YQ’s Efimile fame, Dagrin, has released yet another studio album. He must have furiously returned to the studio perhaps to assert his claim to the Nigerian Mic and air waves after the disappointing outing of his first effort.
A 10 track album with three bonus tracks, one being the instrumental of one of the previously featured song, Pon Pon Pon, this album is suffused with enough energy to power a clubhouse. The upbeat tempo of most of the tracks reminds one of youthful exuberance which is perhaps the only short-coming of this album.
Summarily on track six, the artist enunciate the purpose of this L.P—OWO, IGBO, ASHEWO, all remarkable articles of wild life often attributed to the young. But one can’t put this album down on this premise. Dagrin, as a lyricist, is witty, brave and very stylistic, although his offerings are reminiscent of the dimunitive Lord of Ajasa. Dagrin is taking dialectical rap beyond boundaries, his vocals are almost entirely in his mother tongue and his word plays are still on point. This puts him in the same realm with the likes of 9ice, fellow proponents of the Yoruba language.
The first four tracks are my favourites. They are filled with the energy that hip-pop seem to have lost to what is obtainable on the radios of late. These tracks are wholesome takes on his life, survival and hustle which characterize the “Nigerian dream”. “Everyday”, a pretty much short track thrives on gross experimentation and rather than bury Dagrin’s craft in the graveyard of Sampling, it exalts him as a quintessential rapper with an important voice.
Pon Pon Pon’s delivery is similar to 50cent’s Get rich or Die trying album. It’s perhaps the most Hip song of the year: real hard core stuff replete with gunshots and off-the-cliff word plays. Kondo is easily a Nigeria version of Magic stick but has the high-school charm of J-kwan’s Tipsy. Other remarkable tracks are Hola with Isolate, who sounds a lot like 9ice; the gospel- appeal song with West African idols’ Omawunmi and booty song with Lala, Nla.
This album is perhaps a remake of the typical Brooklyn rap album packaged as a Nigerian version with our definition of hustle and sensibilities. A good L.P!!!

On The Abyssinian Boy and the Boy who wrote it.

There is no longer any such thing like fiction or non-fiction; there’s only a narrative. This were the exact words of E.L Doctorow, a reputable American author which holds true in The Abyssinian Boy, debut effort of Onyeka Nwelue, one of the youngest Nigerian novelists .
It is startlingly remarkable that Mr Nwelue penned this manuscript before age twenty, a time when his peers are beleaguered by the consequences of hormonal fluctuations and are decisively bothered with trendy ways of combating them and asserting themselves as indeed a generation with a difference.
Even more remarkable is the fact that at such a nascent stage, Mr Nwelue could dip his imaginations in the dyes of reality so much so that what he achieves is refreshingly familiar. The streets he describes, the people that populate his fictional world and even the emotional concerns of his characters are so real that his characters could be next door neighbours. His fiction is indeed a potent and genuine remake of reality which can neither be centrifuged nor decanted by analysis.
A part of this novel unfurls in India, in fact it in India we meet our characters in their “usual state”, before the essence of the story creeps in. This part of the novel is an amazing love song of India. The author takes readers on a virtual tour of the aesthetics of the World’s second most populous nation, romanticizing even its dregs in crisp prose. Easily, this part of the novel evokes colorful scenes similar to the kind in Bollywood movies. It is not surprising that the author wrote a decent helping of his manuscript in India and his narrative must have been roused by familiar sensations.
The major characters are the members of an “international” family comprising of a South Indian essayist, his East Nigerian wife and their half-caste nine-year old son, David. The most toward action in the novel’s plot is a visit to the wife’s home country Nigeria by the family and their encounters thereafter. Through Mr Nwelue’s ornate and sometimes faltering narrative, we plumb the detail of their lives. We see their imperfectness, their mistakes, misgivings, misadventures and even the weird relatives with whom they co-exist albeit idyllically.
We delve into their pasts often to relive their experiences, sometimes immaterial to the denouement, but all the same experiences thrust on us by the author’s prerogative. We traipse through refreshing anecdotes and comic vignettes that are perhaps posers of the author’s overseas experience.
The voice through which this story is told is controlled. And convincing. One sees Mr Nwelue toeing the lines of great predecessors like Amos Tutuola in his attempt to birth a language for his works. Even though one is not particularly convinced that he achieves this in The Abyssinian Boy, one can be sure he has set a template which would become a centerpiece attraction of his subsequent fictional endeavours.
The syntax of this work gives it the nuanced feel of a work in translation and the liberty with which the author deals his expressions might herald a new trend in sentence constructions. However the hyphenated depiction of expressions that are supposedly descriptions in this novel— you-are-very-stupid-and-hopeless-eye, so-what eyes—though heaps on the reader’s plate of humor are puerile nonetheless. Encountering invented adverbs like Neverthemore is shocking but hints readers on the poetic license the author has compelled to his prose.
More than anything, the thematic concerns enjoy a multiplicity that does not correlate with the length of the novel. Often, it seemed like the author’s artistic attempt to flare his connoisseurship and grant opinions on pertinent issues that have garnered cultural concerns and had become denominators cutting across humanity. However these issues are tackled fleetingly and often leave the reader with opinionated rather than holistic insights.
Colourful characters also abound in this novel. Easily the narrative becomes a marketplace where all sort of characters are introduced, perhaps in an attempt to achieve a sub-plot which doesn’t entirely work into the “big” narrative. These characters, with peculiar idiosyncrasies and sometimes phonations, interact with themselves and grapple a cast of human conditions such as religion, sexuality, cuisines, amongst other cultural concerns.
Also are the mystic overtones that lend the magical realism tag this novel sometimes bear from previous reviews. The recruitment of Nfanfa, an imaginary albino dwarf that fuels David’s hallucination is reminiscent of similar illusionary characters in Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl, another first novel by another remarkable young Nigerian that dwells on homecoming and the troubles thereafter.
Mr Nwelue, no doubt, has penned a moving tale that underscores the issues of racial integration and culture clash. He has shown his promise and his flair as one of the important emerging contenders of the Great Nigerian Novel and readers can still expect the masterpiece tucked up his sleeves.

Concerning Tile-Tile and Other Children Stories

I am not against censorship for children. I think parents must be careful about what their children are exposed to especially in this time and age when sexuality ooze from all orifices—and the media does not help matters much. The contents of the Media which, is often solicited, as slowly morphed into home-delivered pornography in the guise of liberty of expression. Now radios blare lewd and explicit innuendoes and picture that best cuts the result is that a five year old singing to her uncle, with appropriate body wiggles, Tu-face’s Flex, it’s time to have sex, flex…
There are no two ways to say pathetic. And sympathy would not cure the danger the child is exposed to, for the child is not only endangered, he or she becomes a danger to him or herself. Much as parents review what their children are exposed too, at a critical stage their efforts are thwarted especially when a child gets into school, or any similar arrangement of its kind.
When my nephew was enrolled at a day-care, he started bringing abusive phrases like “bitch”, ambiguous cuss words like Oloriburuku—Just imagine!—home to the utmost surprise of his parents. But little could be done about this because much as some parents try hard to censor what their children are exposed too, some parents are lax in their (in)actions and the school, a meeting place, un-achieves parental efforts by and by.
At this stage very little can be done. Sex education could be employed but with extreme tactics and care. The parents would have to ensure a painstaking re-education of their children at regular intervals to purge them of both peer and societal mis-education. This might thrive in the early ages but the divide teenage years herald can be disastrous. The confidence of parents at this age becomes dubious to the young adolescents who are wont to lean on peers in his quest for propriety and social acceptance.
The adolescent, in defiance to his parent’s instructions, does exactly the opposite of what he or she is told at home. He listens to what the media proffers him; he thinks that rap music is hip; that it’s cool to “sag” his trousers below his gluteal cleft; that it’s absolutely cool to make female friends, in spite the parents’ admonitions in the favour of his academics. Terry-G with his dyed air and his habitual love for marijuana adopts the adolescent has a nephew with televised ease. And his avuncular instructions are obtainable from the lewd lyrics the adolescent pitches in the bathroom, in the unabashed company of his nakedness. And the impact, the sexually awakening that result could leave dire consequences.
It’s not that I don’t like Terry-G. I find his music and production skills top-notch perhaps that is why his status is an enviable one in the Nigeria Hip-pop Scene where he governs and churn out his brand of music to meet unsolicited record sales and massive radio play. Terry-G is easily Nigeria’s Lil Wayne in acoustic delivery and, I think, the only person that stumps his chances as Nigeria’s Producer Laureate is Don “Baba” Jay.
His art is impressive, and replete with the controversy that distinguishes any proponent of an art form. Artists have the tendency to become social dissenters, breaking norms and crossing mores with the liberty that their fame affords them, but I, as an individual, can separate the man and his works. I can assess his music without being perturbed by his life-style, love for extravagance and exuberance. I can enjoy his music, strip it of all authorial labels and relish it as an art form, even though it does not particularly fall in the category of higher arts.
But my little nephew cannot. He is not aware of the marked difference between the honeyed voice that brands a typical Nigeria girl, “Tile-Tile” and the reprobate who bears a bohemian haircut and basks in fumes of cannabis. So he would think calling a girl “Tile” or “Omo-Ele” is cool amongst many other sexually- implicit innuendoes obtainable from Terry-G’s, nay most Nigerian musicians lyrics. Soon he would ask his peers what Terry-G is smoking, and when they call it Mary. J, he would be obliged to attempt it. Like all inquisitive individuals, he is inclined to experiment. Now what I ask myself is who is to be blamed? The Bible says teach your child in a way of the lord so that he would depart from it. But I think again: the didactic role of parent is inherently inadequate, in the light of several opinions posited earlier. However I have resolved that whenever I am around my nephew and am urged to sing AY.com’s pass me your love, I would stifle the desire, hide my tongue under my palate and in my best tenor lisp the first few words of Panam Percy Paul’s Bring down your Glory—Lord, we are sorry.