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 @yahoo.com}
Subject: trae day, right
To: traerocs@yahoo.com

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