Serendipity

Image: Lifewater I was awoken in the middle of the night by hurried footsteps and muffled sounds It was people fleeing their homes; lives they had built with love and sweat I saw devastated towns and heard agonising shrieks Frail hopes and splintered dreams  The soil was drenched in crimson Which vile poison has consumed men’s hearts?  So potent, only a drop sullies the mind and skews right judgement. This has to be a bad dream, I thought to myself, this infernal scene unfolding could not be real But I could smell the fear in the air, I could feel the resentment that pervaded the land Young and old bewildered, in a frantic effort to gather fragments of our lost humanity This was no dream, this was youth being decimated, ideals trampled underfoot and ambition crushed haplessly   How have we become encumbered in this hateful cycle of malevolence? What will stem this unholy tide of wickedness? Is there solace for the grieving? On the other side

Image: NY Times I feel like I'm the victim of a cosmic practical joke that singles out some random soul to torment every now and then. I am traumatised by my own mind, fears and compulsions. I feel like I am paralysed on the stairs of fate, immobilised by the prospect of my own success, too many ideas to move forward with any particular one. I feel like I am the happiest and unluckiest man alive. Doomed in a vicious cycle of regret and baited hope. I am unable to get anything done. I feel like I will wake up dead, not having lived, not having risked, not having lived. Such a pitiful existence, such wasted fodder. I feel weak, exhausted at the very cusp of ignition, with promise just on the horizon. Second guessing is a fatal flaw, it obliterates destiny by the second.  I feel like I know the way better than any and yet remain lost in a self imposed maze of hesitancy. Each second wasted ripples in lifetime consequences. What good is a blueprint, if it is cased i

Image: Getty   It’s amazing the amount of talent we have in the Nigerian music scene, we've been telling our own stories through music for decades now and we've become a force to be reckoned with in Africa and gradually, even globally. It’s been a conduit for us to export our culture and enlighten the world about our travails and triumphs as Nigerians and Africans. Music is as much an expression of our struggles as it is of our achievements. I can reel out the names of a number of legends that have pioneered the music industry here in Nigeria but I’d like to focus on the contemporary scene for this article as there is a trend which I believe stifles the creativity of some of the most talented acts we have to offer. The inspiration for this article came to me as I read a couple of blog posts on Linda Ikeji’s blog. One where she mentioned two of the songs she was really into at the time and another by a fellow named Emmanuel, that was written as a reaction to Linda’s post