Two days back Ore was talking about information overload well for me I think it’s definitely music overload. I mean everybody’s dropping dope tracks. Dare Art-Alade (I can so relate with his “escalade” song…the things we do for girls. On the other hand my friend told me: “o boy kill the love shit, make your money first, the girls will always be there. It’s kind of true considering the fact that there’s no romance without finance), El Dee, Sound Sultan, Paul Play Dairo etc. So who are we going to listen to? The funny thing is that despite all this popularity most of our artists barely manage to survive. It’s hard out here for a pimp…I mean for Nigerian musicians. And it’s all because we ain’t got the super rich and powerful record companies over here. In the States if you’ve got talent you’re signed (or if it’s mass appeal you’re still signed but provided with ghost writers). They’ll hit you with more money than you can spend; all you now have to do is concentrate on the music. They’ll take care of the rest: promotion, sales, welfare etc. but in Naija in most cases one person is the artist, manager, promoter, distributor at the same time. You’re survival depends on the number of shows you can rock. The ones who make it big have tight schedules: Lagos today, Abuja tomorrow, Port Harcourt at the weekend and a tour of the States or Europe to perform at that big Nigerian function next week. You’re seeing 2face, Styl Plus and PSquare everywhere abi? They’re the privileged few.

Since it’s all about me/I just bought me a V/this is TRAE to the zee/phone number number three/. That’s the text I sent out to some of my peeps to tell em I just got a V-Mobile line. Glo hooked me with their sms, V-Mobile with their voicemail, MTN with their…i don’t know. It was the only option as at the time I bought it. It’s gone now though. Least I forget our favourite GSM e-zine is back! More power to Sagai J. Adam.

It’s really kind of funny the hatred some people can have for you. If I was a Nigerian politician I’d say my life is in danger as the dynamic duo of Nubiansoul and Sokari want to assassinate me … assassinate my character. In another way it’s kind of shocking. It’s like an evil dictator versus activist scenario, where the activist goes to any length to see to the evil dictator’s downfall. Damn ma, agreed I have my short comings (but who doesn’t) but if you really get to know me you’ll see that in truth I’m the harmless simple version of the mister nice guy brand (not to be confused with nice guy syndrome oh). Abeg live and let live jare. Thanks.

Nah nigga I don’t know, I don’t know who got you/
I don’t know who stabbed you, I don’t know who shot you/
I don’t know who cut you, I don’t know who robbed you/
But you think I know cause you know how my squad do/

That’s 50 Cent on “I don’t know officer”. You dumb fucks out there ain’t got nothing on me.

You might have recognized that I’ve been firing from all cylinders in the past few hours; forgive me. It’s just that a recent post on naijablog got me all angry. Dude a.k.a. Mr. Nigeria is at it again. He’s straight misinterpreting and dissing a chick, same thing he did to me some weeks back. Such stuff makes me want to ask him to hold his peace and leave the country if he hates it so much. In my case he started the whole falsities and then his good friend Black Looks took over. And man it hurt so bad. Black Looks a.k.a. Mrs. Activist (In reality she sucks at it. Her whole blog is a joke. Straight copying, pasting and summarizing. You’re a news editor now huh? Mam if you have nothing original to say I suggest you stop blogging) went ahead to brand me as being homophobic (for your info I do dislike homosexuality but I’m not exactly like “kill all homosexuals”) and misogynistic…one who’s canvassing for the raping of lesbians. She did the branding in posts and comments on her blog and on her beloved Global Voices Online. It just wasn’t fair at all. An apology would be a good way to start setting things straight.

Away from that now. I was going through my blog news aggregator like I love to do and stumbled upon this “soul on ice” post. Obi I’m totally with you. It reminds me of one of them Christian pamphlets I read recently. Story goes like this. There once lived a pastor and his son. They usually made the evangelism rounds together distributing pamphlets and preaching the word. Then came this very cold winter morning; dad opted out of the walk but son volunteered to do the rounds alone. As he was on his rounds he came to the house of an old widow. Son knocked, knocked and knocked until she finally opened her door. Son does his delivery and leaves immediately. Next Sunday widow goes to church to give a testimony. Says she was heartbroken over her hubby’s death, after which no one cared for her. Thus she was about committing suicide until son’s persistent knocks made her to go attend to the door. Son’s cheerful smile and the pamphlet he gave her with the bold title “God loves you” made her change her mind and give her life to Christ. Bullshit if you ask me. Very unrealistic to say the least. Can you imagine someone who’s really depressed suddenly change her mind for three words and a smile (most likely a fake one at that). Christians should stop spreading this “God loves you” stuff and instead start spreading the word “we/I love you”. What does a depressed person care about God? God that he/she cannot see. As is said: “God lives in us”, therefore if we really care for her we would tell her that we love her and really try showing it to her in our words and actions. Also the habit of trying to make converts with “the world is coming to and end and damnation stuff” is straight bullshit. that’s intimidation. The main message should be that one should be good because it’s good to be good and not because one could otherwise perish in some eternal fire.

Enough said, I’m out

You’re familiar with the title phrase huh? Well, after we got knocked out of the ACN at the semi-final stage I was mad…sort of sha. In line with that spirit I’ve decided to get a few things off my chest…give a few knocks to people that piss me off. Here goes.

Osaze Peter Odemwingie
Although the goal which knocked us out of the ACN was dubious (offside), Côte d’Ivoire totally outplayed us in the game and deserved to win. If a scapegoat was to be picked for the disappointing match it would be Osaze. He was a big “minus one” in our team, what the hell was Eguavoen thinking? Utaka or Aghahowa should have started at that right wing instead! Osaze seriously limited our impetus in attack; nothing positive came from his wing while he was on the field. I don’t know if it’s the magnitude of the match that overwhelmed him but dude couldn’t hold the ball, make a good pass forward, talk less of dribble. Whenever the ball was with him he either passed it back to his teammate or set off running like a headless chicken till he was dispossessed. Anyways in the end we settled for our usual Bronze so it ain’t all that bad.

2face Idibia
Truth be told, nowadays the only thing I like about 2face is his music. Period…kpom! When giving interviews, doing promos, hyping up the crowd at shows etc the guy simply sucks. All in all he talks like a damn illiterate, he ain’t sharp enough. And that’s too bad considering the fact that at the moment he’s Naija’s foremost musician. You need to hear him answering questions, he always gives wack responses. He mumbles one or two sentences then the next thing you hear from him is “my people, nothing dey happen”. “Yes oh, my brother na God” etc. he’s got the musical talent but he needs to brush up on his intellectual stuff.

Olusegun Obasanjo
Silence they say is golden. But it takes a wise man to know when not to stick to the rule. OBJ’s silence over his purported third term bid is killing me, more seriously it’s heating up the polity. It’s as simple a question as one can ever be asked. I’ve put myself in his shoes to try and ration out if silence is really the wise thing at this stage and my senses tell me it’s not. Why can’t he just come straight like his friend Thabo Mbeki has done. If at the end he’s not dreaming of Aso Rock beyond May 2007 then I’ll say his present silence is one of the dumbest things he has ever done since coming into power in 1999. Postscript: Lamidi Adedibu deserves to be bitch slapped.

Guys who stoop to pee/piss
I don’t know about you and your environment but for me the sight of a guy stooping to piss is quiet a common occurrence in Abuja. And I’ve realized that these guys are almost always Northerners…particularly Muslims. Pardon me but I think it’s un-masculine or bizarre to say the least. Information reaching me is that it’s either these guys are uncircumcised; it’s some religious rule, or both. I like to think of men as conquerors of the world. You should stand and do your thing while surveying your kingdom. Ha-ha, keep Abuja clean.

I’m in a shitty mood, forgive me. Many other people piss me off. But like Nas in his song “destroy and rebuild”:

it’s sooo hard to put a coward’s name in my rap (blog)…

nonsense, not to be obnoxious kid/*** for the record you could suck my ****/

Anyways it’s valentine in a few days. So like Georgy Porgy I’m giving all the sweet ladies who read my stuff a big cyber kiss, and like OBJ I’m giving all the fine gentlemen who regularly bust through my lines a warm cyber handshake. Peace and love in Africa!

Today’s lesson is on chicken and beer. Chickens…chicks…lesbos. Yep, I’m ranting off on homosexuals and drinking.

I’m the last person you’ll see spending money on booze. That is to say I don’t drink. Or more precisely I hardly drink, I do so only socially. And that’s good for me cos I ain’t ever want to see myself addicted to the bottle. But sha I’m kinda getting used to it these days…my friends have being initiating me. You know I gotta be all manly and shit. Some days back we went drinking at one of them garden joints (they’re scattered all over Abuja municipal area council) and after every I got thinking and recognize that when we guys be out drinking we talk a lot of shit; a lot of useless, stupid and silly stuff. It’s like in the economic law of diminishing returns. At first guys meet up to drink once In a while and it’s all fun. Then over time you start to “live to drink”, you’re always gulping down alcohol with your peers. Hanging out over bottles of beer becomes played out, the same old faces, same old dumb minds, same old stupid gist. At that point stuff is being overdone. Me thinks many guys are at this stage. Could we please get a life and move on to other things…don’t you see you’re getting pot bellied?

On the other hand that was a bit too harsh, because for many adults over here considering the social-economic status of the country the beer parlour is their only recreation spot. And some how it’s natural that as boys become men their meeting point changes too from the play ground to the beer parlour. Nevertheless if you’re pro-bottle make sure you’re sipping that drink with the right crew around you and do it in moderation.

We’re through with beer, over to the chicken. My brain did a eureka on me recently, thus I present to you my reproductive organ theory (Keep a straight face and read on!). It simply states that being gay ain’t natural. What are you? A Christian, Muslim, Atheist, whatever. At least you’ll agree with me that the brain(s) behind human life had a reason for giving men a penis and women a vagina. Yuck, this is dirty writing. Henceforth I’m calling them the P and the V. remember I’m not working with spirituality. Just as it’s natural for a woman to breastfeed a baby and a man doing so as would be wrong, it’s also natural for the P to hang out with the V. two V’s hanging out using dildo’s candles and shit or two P’s hanging out hitting each other through the anus is thus crazy…abnormal to say the least! If you’re a farmer looking out for your money and you see your prize bull mounting another bull and not a cow would you say “oh it’s his choice, let him be”? Definitely not, you’ld probably say “that bull is sick in the head”. Therefore under natural law there ain’t no justification for our brothers and sisters being gay. They’re sick in the head straight up. No matter how our minds have being conditioned to look at it as normal it’s not normal.

Being that in Africa homosexuality ain’t a common phenomenon, when I see some of them Western pro-gay stuff I get really baffled. I guess it gets the Nigerian government baffled as well cos they recently started making moves to ban all forms of homosexuality in the country.

Anyways me thinks lesbos probably need a dick whipping and gay dudes probably need to ponder over Tony Tetuila and 2face Idibia’s words: “ogogoro be like woman, if you shack am you go high oh!”

Great combos, props to UNN: okpa and cigar, akara and breast. Another great combo, props to Ludacris: chicken and beer

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.

Note: I’ve since been unbanned.

Yep, that’s right people. I was banned today from posting or participating in the activities of the nairaland.com forum. But I ain’t gonna start bitching or crying over spilt milk. Am a just be honest, objective and straight forward in spitting out my view on the whole issue.

Nairaland is a Forum for all-purpose talk on Nigerian issues by Nigerians. If you ask me I’ll tell you it’s the best Nigerian forum on the net activity wise. It’s owned by Seun Osewa (a.k.a. the site administrator). He also owns mobilenigeria.com, a Nigerian GSM discussion forum. Also one of the best Nigerian forums online. It’s dead now as it has been superseded by Nairaland. On Both sites I was one of the highest contributors post-wise, one of the peeps who made the forums thick.

I was banned by the admin cos of some criticism shit. Well I ain’t sorry anyway, because I believe I was constructive in my criticism. That fella: Seun has been in one too many face-offs with members of his forum. And they mainly stem from his editing or/and deleting of their posts wrongly. And at times (as in my case) this ends in their being banned from the forum. What a shame. If I was a forum administrator I certainly would have been fairer and done better.

Not being able to stand being criticized is the height of immaturity and not being a man. It’s like one is on some Mugabe, Castro, Abacha or Saddam dictatorial shit. They are Political leaders who are/were known to lock up their opposition indiscriminately. Criticism helps you. One loses nothing from being criticized, especially when you know you’re right. If at all you’re wrong you just learn a lesson which betters and perfects you.

Hey, I Hope I wasn’t sounding hyper sensitive? But you know I believe so much in free speech, allowing peeps to say what they want to say. I hate depriving others of their right to free speech (I don’t do it with my blog comments) and I hate it when mine is. I’ll miss the forum for sure and it hurts to know the forum can do without me (no one individual is that important as to stop the course of life). But in the same vein I can do without the forum. Before Mobilenigeria and Nairaland I was and so after it I still will be. Life goes on.

Well I guess forumites have clashes with admins the world…i mean “the net” over. And things will only get better when peeps learn to tolerate each other.

This post has sapped the energy outta me. Repping Naija (like QMHchick of africanhiphop.com) is what we should be doing and not getting into arguments with fellow Nigerians.