Trust the Process.

Two days ago while I worked on a photo from a writing workshop organized by my friend, I had a conversation with my brother on the process of getting the image I wanted from the raw photo which was dark and nearly useless. The picture went from drab to fab in a few minutes. Yesterday morning, I woke up with the thought that the process of getting that picture ready was a lot like life and how God arranges our lives.

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What Went Wrong Majek?

So Abiodun reminded me about Majek Fashek this evening and I’m listening to him right now. I have been a hardcore fan of Majek for as long as I’ve been alive, maybe even before I was born. I have Majek songs that he’s forgotten he sang and that man has no bad song, all of them are amazing. I don’t have a favourite song of his but Mother always makes me smile.

Fela, My Fela

I hated Fela’s music as a child, maybe hate isn’t the right word. I think it was annoyance and irritation, a strong irritation at how long the instrumental bit ran before I could hear my Fela’s voice. You see, I loved Fela.

Marley’s Ghost.

May 11, 1995.

The girl was bouncing on her grandmother’s four-poster bed as she listened to the radio, she loved jumping on the bed and having the bed throw her further in the air than with the other boring beds everywhere else. The radio was on, Bob Marley’s songs were on rotation and she bounced in rhythm to them even though she wished it were Lucky Dube instead. She preferred Lucky Dube’s songs to Bob Marley’s because at her mother’s birthday party when she was four, Lucky Dube’s music was the backdrop and that was one of the most exciting moments of her young life.

Hodge Podge 2

You cannot listen to Good or Bad by J-Martins without thinking about your brother, the one who had bought speakers when he was in secondary school. Like you, he could obsess over a song and play it relentlessly until you suck it dry. Unlike you, he would not use headphones or earphones to keep the music within your head, if he liked a song, the house had to vibrate with the strains and strums of his new favourite song. But it wasn’t Good or Bad you were looking to listen to on an afternoon that was ultimately destined to be boring. You had just finished listening to Let’s Get Serious by Jermaine Jackson and your music player segued into the Timaya and P-Square flavoured buffet of a song.

The Nightshift

I was trying to rush down my breakfast because I nearly late for work, when my brother came to stand beside me with a song I couldn’t make out, playing on his phone.

“Do you know I’m listening to the original version of Easy,” he said. “Lionel Richie wasn’t the original singer.”

Carlos @ 70

Yesterday, Carlos Santana turned seventy. I didn’t even know it was his birthday when I finally listened to Wild thoughts. I was a little afraid that DJ Khaled would destroy the sublime beauty of the epic “Maria Maria” in the name of sampling/homage. Bros was wise enough to know you don’t mess with perfect, you respectfully work around it and you get Rihanna to sing about crazy, untamed things- as she was born to do.