Ever had a crazy idea pop into your head and then vow you were going to follow it up to the end? Example: some old American lady I used to know gave up all her possessions to become a missionary with dreams of one day settling in Nigeria! Well in my case I WANTED TO change my name! Yeah I was quite serious about it that I drafted a post to explain myself. I’ve changed back my mind though; I’m sticking to what my Pops gave me . Nevertheless am a still take away five minutes of your life (depending on how fast you read though), let’s rumble!

-I’ve got my mind made up; I’m going to change my name from Tochukwu R. A. Ezeokafor to Trae Zeefor Deeds.
-Funny ain’t it? Well let me break it down for y’all this way.
-I was given the name Tochukwu Ezeokafor at birth.
-The “R” came at baptism making my initials TRE. If you look at stuff from my boarding school J.S.S. 1 days you’ll still see TRE marked everywhere.
-I wanted my initials to be TRAE (I liked the sound of it) so I choose an “A” name at confirmation (catholic tradition).
-Was into the Topz Christian magazine around the same time. Started adding the “Z”. You know…kid stuff. It just sounded cool.
-Re-discovered Hip hop in ’99 and later found out about the existence of Jay-Z. Entered university the year after and later on became better known as TRAE or trae_z.
-Saw the trailer for one of Adam Sandler’s films: “Mr. Deeds” and instantly fell in love with the name.
-Started thinking about a name change (my Pops sort of did it and my elder bro toyed with it. My sister too…well she’s married ) and mentioned it to my Mum.
-Finally made up my mind to change my name and begin the legal proceedings as soon as possible. After all, the world’s greatest did so too. He went from Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr to Muhammad Ali.
-Choose the name Trae Zeeofor Deeds…a man has the right to be called whatever he wants. I’m not ashamed of my Igbo name/identity, I just felt like changing it. Anyways the surname Ezeokafor and the first name Tochukwu are getting all too common for my liking.
-What does it mean? Do I know the social and governmental implications of what I’m about to do?
-Who cares, it’s my name of choice and I like it .
-Trae is a Spanish verb and a common first name in the US. Zeeofor is a play between my nickname’s suffix and my Igbo surname (at least make small Naija identity dey now). And Deeds? Great guys (Sandler and TRAE), great names (Deeds) .

Talking about the festive season, the only stuff worth yapping about is that I just realized that like T-Pain I’m sprung over Shorty. She got me doing the dishes/anything she wants for some kisses/. not really. Anyways case closed, it’s picture time!

I WANTED to change my name so bad…blame it on Adam Sandler and Mohammed Ali

About 12 months ago I did this: “Seven things I’m grateful for in 2004″. This time around I’m doing “Outro 2005″; it’s my personal wrap up for the year. We still gots 11 days to go, but what the heck it’s never too early to open up your Christmas presents.

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie it’s a high to write about her beloved Nsukka. But for me, being in Nsukka for long periods throughout the year is ‘cos a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Anyway I’ve been the better off for it personality wise cos a lot of sensibility has been pumped into my head along with a double dose of meekness. I guess I’m now good to go.

Like drug addicts and alcoholics, cyber space has been my own solution (this year) to getting away from life’s boredom and troubles. Getting my own website: “traedays.com” has definitely been the high of it all. Nigeria being Nigeria getting online constantly hasn’t been easy, but like Alamieyeseigha who said his escape from London to Bayelsa was a miracle and that he didn’t know how it happened, I’m saying my coming online almost every other day has been a miracle. It just happens.

In the Time magazine edition of Dec 17th, 2001 Bono said:

“Rock music can change things. I know that it changes our lives” says Bono. “Rock is really about the transcendent feeling. There’s life in the form. I still think that rock music is the only music that can still get you to that eternal place where you want to start a revolution, call your mother, change your job or change your mind. I think that’s what rock music can do”.

Well for me I’ve gotten to that eternal place many a time this year via Hip hop. And recording “from ABJ to UNN” in July was defiantly one of them times.

For the outro in this outro I say rest in peace to the souls we lost 10 days ago in the Sosoliso plane crash. There goes a bunch of promising Nigerians. It’s painful but as they say “Nigeria go survive”. Let’s pray we survive the preliminary round in next year’s African Cup of Nations. I can’t wait man!

It’s been a year of ups and down in the world. Here’s one of my favourite pictures for the year 2-double-O-5. Ha-ha, I love my black people!

Our father, give us this day our daily bread/
…give us these days and take our daily bread/
see I done did all this whole bullshit/
and to atone I throw a little something, something on the pulpit/
we took that shit, measured it and then cooked that shit/
and what we gave back was crack music/
and now we ooze it through they nooks and crannies/
so our mammas ain’t got to be they cooks and nannies/
and we gonna repo everything they ever took from granny/
now the former slaves trade hooks for Grammies/
this dark diction has become America’s addiction, those who ain’t even black use it/
we gon’ keep bagging up this here crack music/

Kanye’s closing words (spoken poetry) on “crack music”.

See you in 2006, peace out!

Warning! You can’t get all you want for Christmas. Fact! I intended this post to be an interview but after weeks of coaxing Emeka (my interviewee) to play his part unsuccessfully, I gave up. But It’s such a great piece of writing (to me anyway) that I couldn’t allow it to die like that, so I’m publishing it as an unfinished piece.

Emeka at a funfair. He can be reached online at bigmekus82@yahoo.co.uk.

Who’s Emeka Anyaene you might ask. Well back in the day 1993-1995, when the dictatorial Nigerian head of state General Sani Abacha with his deep tribal marks and dark spectacles was running things, when guys of my age were passionate only about playing street soccer and riding bicycles and when entertainment on Christmas day was all about parents loading their kids up in cars and driving them around the major hotels in Abuja (Nicon, Sheraton and Agura) for sight seeing; Emeka and I found ourselves in the then recently established Christ the King’s College (CKC) Gwagwalada Abuja as classmates for the duration of our JSS 1 and 2 years. Back then he was a funny and lively kid who was very active when it came to matters of food. (When you’re in boarding school and not eating to your satisfaction you get a little food crazy. It’s a common phenomenon, I can relate with that). Despite being both based in Abuja we didn’t really keep in touch after that but for a few meetings in town and a few chats online. But recently I got a brainwave. If interviews are going on all over the place from Richard Quest to Jay Leno to Marian Arthur Anazodo and even to Uche Nworah why not me? And so I tied his ass down and got this piece. Ha-ha, the TRAE days show must go on! Enjoy.

Please introduce yourself. More directly, what the heck are you doing in the England?

So what are your final words, is there anything else you’d like to say to anybody reading this?

Just got this in my mail. And I must say it’s fucking tight, a great work of rap (16 bars)

Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:20:32 -0800 (PST)
From: “David” {agogodavid@***.***}
Subject: trae day, right
To: trae**@***.***

well i was hanging on d net tryna browse a bit
till i hit an afrohiphop site to see some shit
looking all around for real emcees to battle with
to greet nicely before i smack em up outta dey seats
then i heard about a nigga trae rapping on tracks
insinuating he can lay emcees down on they back
so i took a time out to check out what he spit
if he tight enough to battle if he sounded legit
oh he tried and i really shud give him some cred
but he aint half of the mc that will wrestle my bread
plus he gotta alot o money he can spent on a site
if u an mc then ur bark shouldnt be worse than your bite
i just felt like rhyming out so i sent u a sixteen
“trips” the name “bricklayer records” watch me flip green
and the floetry section of your site got a glitch
come on, outsource the page and let some hustler get rich.
peace!

But alas it confirms that my site is fucked up when viewed in Firefox (many guys have told me this before sha. Firefox is an alternative to Internet Explorer), it’s not Firefox friendly. Well I’ll have to work on that, it was designed with Internet Explorer. Where my nerds at?

The browser stats I’m getting from my log shows that Internet Explorer is still running things, so it ain’t all that bad. But still i gots to satisfy all, so it’s back to work for me web design wise

Nice rhymes, big ups to me, ha-ha. Remember the first bar? That was the title of Lauryn Hill’s 1998 Grammy winning album. It’s a pity she sort of faded away after that. 50 Cent sure was right when he said this in his verse on “love me”:

I used to listen to Lauryn Hill and tap my feet/
Then the bitch put out a CD it didn’t have no beat/

Now to the second bar “the misunderstanding of TRAE is real”. As if I didn’t have enough issues to deal with already, some dude has come to add to it by misunderstanding me. I was on my own, doing my thing, minding my business and then I get a mail from Orikinla Osinachi. And as you would expect I mailed him back. The next thing you know dude sends me some half-assed mailed and then goes ahead to spit some trash about me on his blog. In my opinion I’ve been misunderstood but I’m too tired to start elaborating point by point how. You can checkout the exchanges between us below and judge for yourself.

I get this in my mail from Orikinla Osinachi:

Trae_z,
Of all the Nigerian bloggers, I thought you would be the first to blog the breaking news of our own born, bred, made and mastered in Nigeria Tu Face winning the first MTV African Artiste of the Year Award.
 
Where were you?
 
Day dreaming?
 
Or ogling at all those sexy Abuja babes?

I replied him thus:

hi there. sorry about the late reply. you know how it is at times. well about 2face i love the guy. but i guess i’m sick of him at the moment. you know when you hear too much songs from an artist you get tired at a point and the best thing is to stop listening to him/her for a while. later on when you do get around to listen to him/her the song sounds fresh and sweet to you again. besides i did’nt have much to say about 2face’s win, and one of my blog policies being:
 

2) When blogging go for original posts. There’s no need of making a post about “SixApart buying LiveJournal” or “Yahoo increasing its e-mail storage to 1GB” when everybody know you copied it from the Wired or CNET News. You‘re not the fucking BBC or CNN, so you don’t have to pretend to be. It’s better if you give us your reaction in detail to such stories then making your post 95% the copied news and 5% your own view of it. 10% the news and 90% your view on it is far better.
 
see http://www.traedays.com/blog/2005/06/how-to-blogaccording-to-trae/

 
i decided to let it slip. Abuja babes dey, but i’ve been on the low…day dreaming. peace!

Dude sends me this

“Abuja babes dey,”
 
Well done!

And then goes crazy on his blog with this:

Blogging is not a writing competition. And blogging is not for ego tripping. Because, I asked a younger blogger a simple question and before I could say “Kiss my arse Nigga” the boy was boasting about his “babes”. I was wondering what his “tissues” got to do with the official question. And I noticed some bloggers from my country contesting for POPULARITY and also for WHO STARTED BLOGGING FIRST? And having a million links does not mean a blog is better than the blog with ten links. As one notable blogger said,”I am not a link whore.”
 
I am first and foremost a writer and blogging to me is another medium of writing.
I don’t have to recommend “Blogging 101″ to them. Because, making too much noise does not mean you are wise. So, Nigga please! And you may blog this.

Doesn’t this post make you sad? Well Obi has got the remedy. Here’s a picture of his family on the cover of an imaginary magazine. Cute stuff…neat…genius…smile baby.

I hate going intimate or emotional online, that’s the recent me for you. But I just had to spit out these little bits and pieces on friendship.

When talking to girls how many of you have heard them go “I prefer to hang out with guys. It guarantees less drama jare”. Yep, that’s what a lot of the ladies say. But you won’t hear a guy say “I prefer to hang out with girls”. Instead you’ll hear “I like to hang out with my mens but if it’s with a chick we’ve gots to be friends with benefits”. Sad but true: a girl’s friendship circle is the most unstable thing after NEPA. I blame it on fact that girls are like the receptive specie. Guys are the active ones. They do the pampering and make the moves while the girls choose from the options offered to them. Looks matter in everyday life but it so much matters when it comes to girls. They gots to look their best always and go through all that: will this guy like me, how can I keep admirers to myself shit. And when you’re steadily under competition friendship ain’t an easy thing. I’ve been in social groups involving both sexes and I tell you the pretty girls are the most popular girls and the ones with the best self esteem. On the other hand friendship is a relatively easier thing for guys. Proof of this can be seen in the Nigerian University housing system where at times as many as 11 guys stay together in a room and they get along fairly peacefully. Anyway, this hanging out with guys stuff works for girls cos in most cases the guys are so daft. They’re ready to follow the girl around all day and even spend big-time on her; not because they like her on platonic terms but because they got hopes of getting a kiss, a hug or hitting it proper one day. Hey…fuck this, over to the next paragraph

There’s something that the Psychologists say about friendship. That it’s born out of our greedy personal desires. That friendship is all about using each other to get a little something-something. E.g. a buddy to hang out with and keep you from being bored, a bedmate or lover to fill your emotional needs, a study, business or political partner to get you right educationally, money-wise or politically. But whatever it is I hate to loose a friend. I try my best to be a good pal always. But if the worst happens (like it has a few times of late) I try to keep my lines open just incase. I don’t want to find myself in a bad mood blabbing about friendship woes like some peeps do in their blogs. The advice I’ll give is exactly the same I gave in a previous post. Be nice 24-7 and try to put yourself in other’s shoes before taking actions. That way you can stop spending a fortune buying all them self help books you buy weekly: “how to keep and win friends”, “understanding the human temperaments” etc.

Still with the topic, I fear I could loose some of my friends and I’m afraid of what the status of our friendship will be in years to come. You know you grow up with friends, meet some in school and at the end of the day you guys head into different directions in life. Some make it big, some end up fairly off and some struggle all the way. Each finds his/her own class and sticks to it. And that’s all because money is a leveler. I don’t mean it in the normal way you might know but that money is an element that certifies one’s “levels” (importance) in society. Remember the line from 50 Cent’s “wanksta” song?

“Damn homie, in High school you was the man homie, what the fuck happened to you”.

That’s real depressing, especially when you consider that it could happen to you. Check this. I got into some silly argument with my younger sis who’s 19 some weeks back. She threw the words, I threw the fist. In the end I got my new radio smashed to bits and pieces (it sure has thought me a lesson for life: never hit a lady) which along with my handset were amongst my most cherished material possessions. And right now things ain’t too cool between us…you know the ego thing. But Imagine my sis paying my bills one day…when she makes it as an actress (that’s sort of what she wants to be and she really is the lively type). And when I’ll then be better known not as TRAE but as Sylvia’s brother. Aaahhh, Crazy!

Life ain’t a fairy tale; you can’t be a kid forever. Now that we’re all finishing school and my mens and I are entering the labour market that masculine psyche thing about making that money is increasingly scaring the shit out of me.

that’s how it is now, that’s how it’ll always be/
I’ll never change this is always me/
from the womb to the tomb, from now to my doom/
drink army from one cup pass it around the room/
that’s the ritual, Big Gran I ain’t forgot you fool/
and all that bullshit you trying to get through/
this is crew love, move music or move drugs/
rival crews get cha black suits up/
I’ll never change…

That’s Jay-Z on “never change” spitting some brotherhood shit. We (my friends and I, you and your friends) all got our childhood dreams. Hope we hit 70 having fulfilled part of it or at least being satisfied with our lives. Shout out to my peeps, Peace!

the brotherhood, we’re all we got

You think say na beans to drop 16? Those are the words of Terry tha Rapman. It’s in Nigerian Pidgin English. Translated to Queen’s English he’s simple asking rhetorically “do you think it’s easy to drop 16 bars (16 lines of rap lyrics)? While I’m asking: do you think it’s easy to bring traedays.com to life? The answers: no be beans at all…it ain’t easy. It takes a day to learn how to play Chess but a life time to master the game. It takes a day to learn how to rap but a lot of effort to really excel at it. And it takes less than 10 minutes to register a domain name like traedays.com but mind, body and soul to make the site worth anything at all.

I’m relieved to have got the site really of the ground in a record time of six days (In the same way a US soldier serving in Iraq would be relieved if he was sent home. Or better yet as relieved as Alamieyeseigha or Dokubo-Asari would be if discharged and acquitted. And that’s after having invested a lot of time, money and energy into the site. I.e. Designing the site and moving my stuff from Blogger to WordPress.

I couldn’t have done it without the trio of Kazey, Yahoo Messenger and my brain. The guys who created Yahoo Messenger should be honoured by the UN. Yahoo Messenger helped me kick convo with kazey and other peeps who were giving me feedback on site. Kazey himself was ever ready to help me out and give me advice. Without his expertise in these internet matters i wouldn’t have done shit. I owe u man. I also feel like patting my self on the back. If not that I’m a surfing freak and familiar with the ways of the internet and elementary HTML, I would have made next to no progress. But sha I still got some little (or a lot of) tweaking to do here and there. Wish me luck.

What’s it with the Nigerian Football Association? Dem guys are disorganized to the core. First we were to play South Korea, then it was changed to DR Congo and now I hear we’re supposed to be taking on Romania today! I wonder if the game will still hold, if it’ll be televised and what manner of players will file out for Nigeria. I heard the match deal was struck and invitations sent out as late as yesterday! Any how sha, I hope all goes well at the end. Almost all countries are playing matches during this FIFA international friendly/game window, so we deserve our own too!

Blogger to WordPress. Nice move, but not always smooth.

Yes oh, my people e don shele. www.traedays.com is now a reality. Paraphrasing Missy Elliot, “it’s as real as the titties on your chest”…that’s if you’re a big girl anyway. Ha-ha. I can’t remember how long I’ve been dreaming of it, but it couldn’t have happened at a better time. I must thank Chippla for helping me out. We got the domain name/registered it from Yahoo!. They be on some bonanza shit, you might want to check them out. And now my friend I really own a part of the internet, no more managing web space for the big guns of the cyber world. This is the real deal; it’s not like that of my fellow Nigerian youths with their…webpage(s) on them “temporal free web hosting sites”. Anyway I now need to get a reliable host and then be about my business. nairahost.com by my friend Kazey is looking good. I know that running a website is not a piece of cake. But it’s good that I’m familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the internet. I’ll definitely need to learn more and get lots of help from my peeps. Wish me luck guys. Peace!

Ha-ha. Hurry, go get yourself a domain name before the good ones are taken like in the email world

I’ve definitely had my ups and downs these past days. And that’s as a result of stuff such as fighting (the animal instinct-fuck it), a reoccurring fever and feeling appreciated by the African Hip hop forums. I was made the moderator for the Nigerian Hip hop section and named best Hip hop analyst…That’s crazy. What better way then to cheer myself up than ranting about soccer.

If according to Jay-Z: “I sold kilos of coke I’m guessing I can sell CD’s”, then “I brought y’all soccer stuffs in the past, I’m guessing I can also bring y’all soccer predictions for the future”. Thus the great Houdini…“traedini” brings you Nigeria’s 23 man squad (with numbers and all) for Egypt 2006. Being nuts about soccer (especially when it comes to the Super Eagles) I’m 80% sure that this will be Coach Eguavoen and Co’s final team list for the tournament (African Cup of Nations) taking place in about 3 month’s time..

A soccer prediction: Nigeria’s 23 man Squad for Egypt 2006

Goal Keepers
1 Enyeama Vincent
12 Etafia Greg*
22 Ejide Austin*

Defenders
2 Yobo Joseph (Vice Captain)
3 Udeze Ifeanyi
23 Taiwo Taye
5 Ordiah Chidi
6 Enakarhire Joseph
21 Nwaneri Obinna
15 Abbey George*

Midfielders
7 Utaka John
13 Ayila Yussuf
14 Olafinjana Seyi
18 Obodo Christian
10 Mikel John Obi
16 Oruma Wilson*
11 Lawal Garba*

Attackers
9 Obafemi Martins
4 Kanu Nwankwo (Captain)
17 Aghahowa Julius
20 Odemwingie Osaze
8 Aiyegbeni Yakubu
19 Makinwa Ayodele

-Players marked with an asterisk (*) will likely not make the team.
-Aiyenugba and Vanzekin might be considered as 2nd and 3rd choice keepers instead.
-Okocha will most likely retire. As some Cybereagles members believe “Egypt is not a place for him to play three or more testimonial games”.
-We sure have a Left and Right wing crises on our hands. With Lawal and Utaka being the only guys who regularly play them wings. Aiyegbeni, Aghahowa, Osaze or even Taye might be adapted though.
-Note that these days Nigeria plays a 4-4-2 diamond formation most of the time.

————9——————–8————-
——————–10————————-
–11————————————-7—-
———————4————————-
——3——————————-2——–
————6——————–5————-
———————1————————-

-With some friendlies coming up (against South Korea and Egypt) there’ll be some chance to experiment and things might change a little bit.

as simple as it gets: a soccer-prediction

Yep, another post on religion from TRAE. Along the line I threw in something on the concept of God, so it’s a little bit like “I’m losing my religion” 2. I got inspired for this from the rants of a fellow blogger, and I talked about it in little detail on a Nairaland (A Nigerian internet forum) thread.

I feel we Nigerians have too much of God in our heads. We put too much of God in our thoughts, words and actions when in fact we ain’t that holy. Or when in fact what is needed of us is to be rational. Try holding a conversation with a typical Nigerian, before you know it he/she veers off to some God-based rants. This is very evident in interviews in the media. When giving interviews why don’t we just talk the talk? We all know you love/believe in/are grateful to God (we love/believe in/are grateful to him too), leave that out and give us the main gist. You’ll come to see that minus the God-focused rants many peeps ain’t making sense/saying much in their statements at all. This is evident everywhere; in politics, football, music, you name it. It’s such a shame. When all is fine nobody mentions God, but when we want success, are in a tight spot, or want to be perceived as being good we suddenly remember God. These examples lend credence to my stance.

1) Governor Tinubu of Lagos was being interviewed on an NTA early morning program some months back on his work in the state. Not a sentence went by without him saying I thank God this, I thank God that. All cos he wanted to be seen as a morally upright leader.

2) Enyimba’s chairman Felix Anyasi-Agwu was being interviewed on Enyimba’s prospects in a CAF Champions League match (sadly Enyimba have since been knocked out of that competition). Hear him: “by the grace of God we shall win”, “the boys have been praying”, “God is a Nigerian”, bla bla bla. As if to say sports is not about winning and LOOSING. Someone must loose, does it then mean the loosing team was rejected by God?

3) From Nneka’s blog:

My aunt her self is the biggest hypocrite in the world, talking God one minute and bitching about someone next, calling them names and is the most judgemental person ive met, but meanwhile will carry bible 24/7 go to early morning mass everyday, never misses it and also evening mass, but has an evil heart, greedy, hates people who are richer than her, looks down on people who are poorer than her.

In the case of Nneka’s aunt, simple politeness, being nice and friendly always, considering our actions and putting ourselves in others shoes before acting would help us to get along with others excellently. With that we can bade good bye to our bad selves and the tons of stupid self help books we buy, borrow and read each day. I’m talking about titles like: “how to get along with people”, “how to win and keep friends”, “understanding temperaments in human nature” etc.

Jeremy (a Brit based in Nigeria…believe it or not he’s more Nigerian than many of us…he wants to see the country progress. He deserves an award) of Naijablog has constantly being hammering on this religious thing. I’m afraid to say but his blog should be aptly titled: “a Nigerian problem a day”. Nevertheless 99% of what he says is true. So I guess we gots to go figure and get our acts right.

Now more directly to the “I’m losing my religion” follow up. Of late I’ve been questioning what my attitude to prayer and praise of God should be. If you’ve ever watched the original Bedazzled (it’s a British version made in 1967 and in my opinion much more funny) there’s a scene where the lead character, Dudley Moore asks Lucifer (played by Peter Cook in human form) why he left the service of God. Lucifer in reply tells Dudley to continuously shower him with praises and worship him. After a while Dudley admits to being tired. Lucifer than tells him that’s exactly how he felt in relation to God. Dudley is surprised but immediately understands the devil’s plight. And that folks is close to what I feel. I know God exists; he’s powerful and did a good job of creating the world. But check this out. Someone saves you from drowning and so for the rest of your life you have to thank him daily and praise him. For sure you’ll get tired and pissed. That’s like being on God’s nuts 24-7. I prefer a kind of buddy relationship with God, having space to do my own thing but still respecting him. You know something like: I love you God from the bottom of my heart, I’ll do anything for you, thanks for everything, help me out today, catch you later…not every freaking day but I’ll keep in touch. Well I better shut my mouth before some people start tripping. I got love for Jah. One!

First there was two sets of footprints in the sand/
Then there was one set of footprints in the sand/
When times get hard and shit hits the fan/
God don’t walk with me, he carry me man!/

50 Cent on the chorus of Young Buck’s “footprints”

On a different note (a sad one) the recent double tragedy in Naija is on my mind. The death of 117 people in a Bellview air crash on October 22nd and the death of our first lady, Stella Obasanjo in Spain on October 23rd. Rest in peace guys. To their families, one advice: “keep your heads up”. Especially our president OBJ, we need you to be strong man.

President Obasanjo in convo with his late wife, a Bellview aircraft