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