Today Cool FM 96.9 Abuja held an audition titled “the broadcaster” for a new presenter for their station. The candidates (a whole lot of them) were given about a minute to do their thing. And at the end, the panel of judges (consisting of some existing presenters) will pick out the 9 most impressive wannabes. the broadcaster will then be selecter based on highest number of votes received from Listerners. I listened in, it was fun. A lot of the wannabes have been doing the news casting thing. To me that’s too dull. They said they were looking for presenter…broadcaster. Showcasing your news casting skills is too limiting. You should show your brighter side and that can be achieved when you do the free flowing stuff. I mean audition like you’re a presenter who’s playing the jams, giving general gist in between and possible interviewing a guest. To do this it really helps if you have a great sense of humor, a warm voice/personality that can captivate people and make them enjoy listening to you/hearing you talk. You know that larger than life feeling. From the wannabes I heard, two really blew me away. The first was a guy who pretended to interview Paris Hilton and Gwen Stefani. A smooth talker, he sure has a future compeering shows. The other was Violet Ibe a.k.a. Little V. she pretended she was anchoring a text in program. She also spit some radio-relevant rhymes and generally flowed like a true MC.

I was once a wannabe myself (to an extent I still am). I was kind of serious about it that I went online to research on what it takes to be a good radio presenter. But before then I used to cut my own demo tapes at home. As I’m typing this I’m listening to one I made way back, between December 31st 2003 and January 2004 to be precise. I’d go online and source for MIDI files (music files that sound like polyphonic ringtones). A few of those I used on this tape are The Fugees’ “ready or not”, Warren G’s “regulate”, Coolio’s “cu when u get there”, Bone Thugs N Harmony’s “crossroads”, Jay-Z’s “hard knock life”, Jonell’s “don’t stop” and Coolio’s “gangstas paradise”. I’d get my microphone and rap over the instrumentals with my friends, spit some of my old flows, fool around dropping some tight and some wack freestyles, interview as many people as I could and generally just run my mouth till the tape was full. Listening to it now makes me nostalgic. Oh well…I’ve missed the Cool FM chance but if feasible I’ll try and grab the next opportunity because I must admit presenting on radio is kind of cool. It feels good to able to impact positively on other people’s lives and at the same time retain one’s privacy.

Postscript: I love it when a DJ is on air. You know all that scratching and mixing of them wonderful joints. Especially when an old school track comes on or a new one that you’re really crazy about. Kai! Music na de very koko.

Yeah, I love my radio…and Cool FM 96.9

I’m getting really addicted to reading blogs, especially those with a lot of personal stories to tell. It feels good seeing life through other people’s eyes and learning a new thing or two. But it’s a shame that I can’t be that personal on my own blog; I ain’t got it in boldness like some other bloggers. Worse still I’m not blogging anonymously so my ranting license is limited; how sad. I started blogging un-anonymously so I gots to keep to the status quo. It reminds me of the hint that one has to be careful about what you put online. Because after your stuff has been indexed a zillion times by Google and co; getting it erased off cyber space at a latter date is as hard as erasing the trauma of rape from an abused child’s mind.

That was some sad shit. But on the happy side I recently put face to another of my anonymous peoples’ name…Chxta. As is common in these cases what you conjure up in your mind is often not what you see. I thought he’ll be all big bros and shit and be a little too mature/serious minded for my liking but the Chxta I finally met was one chubby, cool and down to earth guy.

For those who don’t know, Big Brother Nigeria is finally on. I hardly ever follow reality shows or more correctly I hardly ever get the chance to follow reality shows. Things might change this time around though because I know two of the contestants (Maureen and Ebuka)! Maureen and I were mates at UNN. Matriculated the same year, were in the same faculty and even took a few courses together. But back then I was really on the low socially so up until the last time I saw her (late last year) it was basically all light chit chat. As for Ebuka he’s an old boy of CKC Gwagwalada, same as my bro and I. They still got a little under 90 days to keep doing their thing; I wonder how far they’ll both go. ***Shakes head, TRAE which day you join groupies them? ***.

Also we got “a first” coming up tomorrow. It’s the Hip Hop World Awards. It’s the first ever awards dedicated solely to Nigerian Hip hop. Too bad that my ass won’t be in Lagos to witness the whole shit.

Maureen and Ebuka. My peoples: when I shine, you shine; when you shine, I shine. It’s all love.

A lot of bad stuff has happened in the past months: Katrina, Tsunami, London bombings, Bellview-Sosoliso crash etc. And being that they didn’t directly affect me I’ll be like: “nna na wah oh, which levels na. Nothing do me sha, so no le le”. In line with that the bird flu stuff came and I didn’t really pay attention to it. Then all of a sudden I heard it has spread to Kaduna and even down to Abuja. The news finally hit me in the face when the FCDA (Federal Capital Development Authority) Development Control Department visited our street on Thursday 16th February. You see our Neighbours rear chickens, turkeys and goats in their backyard…while we (my mom to be specific) have a garden in ours. Who ask you sef? Ajayi work, no payment. Ok back to the story. Because of the bird flu scare, rearing of birds has been banned in residential areas in Abuja. Thus our neighbours are by law in the wrong and the FCDA guys came to set things right. Like joke like joke they raided our neighbours chicken coop dry! They took the chickens, dipped them into some chemical (most definitely poisonous) and then stuffed them in a bag. I felt our neighbours pain; another source of income gone in these hard times. And according to madam, she devoted a very large part of her salary into the poultry project. Now all her labour amounts to nought. I’m sorry if this is dumb. I know we gots to be careful and all, but them birds sure did look very healthy. It makes little sense to just kill them all like that. Me thinks they should have been taken alive, tested for flu and those healthy be returned to their owners or killed and stored in some government abattoir. The government’s say is final sha so I guess no more chicken meals for us. Oh well, who cares. I’m too broke to be a fast food addict (Biggs, Tantalizers and the likes). Ha-ha. The chickens were counted though, so there could be some compensation (maybe monetary or in form of chicks) in the offing.

I’ve always wanted to have a customized T-shirt/jersey. I’ve finally done so, thanks to the artistic brain of my main man Kenieflex. Picture taken February 15th.

Shorty calls me TRAE baby, the ABJ representer/
You know I love the ladies, give me chance and I go enter/
Brought up in the eighties, a real intercontinental/
Restless like I’ve got rabies, man I’ve seen both heat and winter/
Super Eagles shriner, I love Agha and Utaka/
I’ll turn down a Pathfinder for a chance to get onliner/
I hear music my head scatter, like hip hop, rock or even samba/
Rugged like an okada, fuck with me, o boy your father!/

This post is meant to clear the storm about homosexuality that has been raging on TRAE days. Don’t even bother yourself with trying to keep the storm going cos I’ll delete your comment. If you want to discuss homosexuality, do it on your blog.

Jeremy and Owukori misinterpreted my statements and started this storm. When I said “lesbos probably need a dick whipping” I meant that lesbians would most likely have a change of heart on their sexual orientation if they had mind blowing sex with a guy.

If I’ve hurt anybody in the process I’m sincerely sorry. But I still don’t think homosexuality is cool. Since it matters so much to a lot of people what I think about gays, I’m ready to change my mind if the price is right. In the end it’s all about the Naira you know.

For peeps who still think I’m homophobic check this: I’ve started reading afrohomo’s blog! Dude’s writing is simply captivating! And also check this:

I flow straight and precise, like a man killing device/
Fuck with me I’ll take your life, cos my heart’s as cold as ice/
My mouth’s raw as Obie Trice, I love dykes I ain’t biased/
Wanna battle (me)? Come on be wise, I’ll fuck you (up) like a fly ass/

“Dyke” is a slang term for a lesbian.

Thanks for all the love and hate. And Yes I still think hip hop and soccer is life. If you think otherwise, keep it to yourself. It’s a free world.

Although I’m not much of a soccer player, soccer is still the love of my life. It’s the greatest sport in the world! One of the things I really like about it is the celebration that ensues when a goal is scored. It’s not a high scoring sport like basketball so goal celebrations are really wild. The crowd goes crazy and the goal scorer (along with his team mates) gets to celebrate in (almost) any way they like. I’m really really loving the goal celebrations in the on-going African Cup of Nations. Most of them involve a little dance and right now they are the coolest thing on earth!

See Nigeria’s Taye Taiwo’s celebration after scoring against Ghana.
See Côte d’Ivoire’s Drogba’s celebration after scoring against Libya.
See Senegal’s Henry Camara’s celebration after scoring against Zimbabwe.

The list goes on. For my Nigerians who want to get every detail about our ACN campaign Kickoffnigeria.com and forum.cybereagles.com are the very places to be at. Peace!

The Super Eagles celebrate after Taye Taiwo’s goal

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

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.

“I’m losing my religion”. I first heard that phrase when I listened to Tupac’s verse on “2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted”, a song on which he featured Snoop Dogg. And I feel it perfectly explains my situation. I’m losing my religion. I’m not atheist and I guess I do believe in God, but I’m really slacking in prayers, other religious stuff and I’m not going to church much these days. It’s kind of like I’m not feeling God or the whole concept of religion. I’m still good though and try to keep all my thoughts, actions and words positive. I went to a seminary secondary school and got elementarily schooled in the ways of the priesthood. I was active in church activities, specifically mass serving for a long time. A few of my mates, all things being equal should be priest in the next four years. But as one grows older and wiser in the ways of the world, the whole religion concept becomes harder to believe in or follow whole heartedly. Education teaches you to believe and trust in the empirical. Religion stuff based on faith becomes really hard. You start questioning religious stands on some stuff which they believe is bad for you but which you are comfortable with as they harm no one directly. Such stuff includes fornication, swearing-foul language, secular music, smoking, drinking, sexual-intimate dancing, materialism to an extent and some fashion trends. Religion…prayer…Bible reading ain’t easy, cos it’s based on faith. Faith in something which you can’t physically see and rewards from which are not instant. It’s kind of like trusting in an unknown. The talk about heaven, hell, purgatory and life after death is one big unknown. Nobody ever came back from the dead to recount his experiences. So present practices or assumptions about what people should do to get the best out of life after death, is as a result of thousands of years of human thinking and assumptions. Just like law is different from morality, goodness is different from religion. One can still be a good human outside the religious context. We humans naturally are emotional and are prone to deifying people. We like to have role models among our own kind, many times to our own detriment. E.g. many of our religious leaders who are in fact mere mortals like us. I don’t really blame many learned people out there who though not atheist are not into any particular religion. Nor do I blame those who diss religion as Fela did in “Shuffering and Shmiling”, as our religious leaders do have their own faults. I’m certainly not anti-religion. There’s good evidence to be religious. There are miracles, there are testimonies, the Bible is a master piece still relevant in today’s world, there’s Christian history and tradition stuff evident/visible in places like Rome and Israel, and religion does keep society orderly, it makes people friendly towards each other. I also really do admire young people like Ebele a.k.a. melody_me, who despite the temptations of this world still seek God and aspire towards holiness.

In summary I believe in keeping it positive. I do good things cos it’s good to be good; karma exist. I do believe in God but unfortunately I’m really low on religion stuff. Guys please pray for me that some day I’ll start feeling religion again. Here’s a poem I wrote about two years ago. Though I’ve gotten over some of the issues I wrote about, others still relate to my present state. Enjoy it sha. Peace!

Negative TRAE: The devil in me
Completed 12th December, 2003

Wrote the first four lines as far back as June 2003, but revised and completed it in December 2003 to reflect what was on my mind at that time.

A.D.I.D.A.S., is my mode right now
Fucked up class, but still I won’t pipe down
Gotten so ras, creeping all over town
Yawa go gas, I need Jehovah now
It’s like Nas said, I’m a sex crazed bastard
A popular thug, I could be AIDS ravaged faster
I break honey’s hearts, then go back to fuck a hoe
Or I jerk off in the bath, God damn, my morals are low
When it comes to the money, I’m loose, from trees it grows?
This shit sure ain’t funny, cos soon I’ll end up broke
I’ll soon be on my own, a man, how will I cope?
When I’m still fucking known, for stealing my father’s notes
I can’t study right, low drive, I wanna flex
It’s not that I ain’t bright, but shit is on my neck
Turning me to a flunk, a junk, one of the best
And so I’ll graduate so dumb, what happens next?
I’m loosing my religion like Pac, I’m out of track
Before I know I’m right back, with Sat’ making contact
But now never again like Ja, will I go back
But still I always fail, my guy, what do I lack?

* Yawa go gas = Nigerian Pidgin English for a problem will occur

Inspired by the songs:
1) A.D.I.D.A.S. – killer Mike ft. Big Boi and Sleepy Brown
(ADIDAS means All Day I Dream About Sex)
2) Popular Thug – kelis ft. Nas
3) 2 of Amerikaz most wanted- Tupac Amaru Shakur ft. Snoop Dogg
4) Never again – Ja Rule
5) Why – Da Band

The creation of Adam painting by Michelangelo…are you feeling God?

Yeah hommie, this is TRAE’s party, club or dance music theory. It’s good stuff for you to read before you start making that club banger or hit track you’ve been dreaming about. I’m sick of seeing young cats who wanna get into the game and the first thing on their mind is a party track. And when eventually they record, it turns out wack. When I hear such stuff on radio or listen to them peeps’ demo/CD privately I feel like puking. These young cats wanna rap without knowing the basics. And thus their songs lack the basic techniques of elocution, rhyme patterning, breath control and lyrics. Party track stuff ain’t bad per se but when it flops it’s a double flop (it sucks times two) and when it’s nice it’s really nice. It’s a case of two extremes. There’s no in between. When done well you get stuff like “tongolo” by D’Banj, “ewajo” by JJC and The 419 Squad, “nothing dey happen” by pherowshuz, “bizzy body” by P-Square and “marry” by Nico Gravity. The stuff about party music is if you don’t get the beat and the chorus/hook right, the song on the whole turns out to be pure garbage. And won’t be worth listening to; talk less of stepping or dancing to. Many guys fail in this aspect. They get the beat and chorus wrong and their lyrics are often lame and sound stale/banal. Their songs are full of; shake your ass, shake that ass, back it up, shake what your mama gave you, back that ass up, shake body-nyash-ikebe, move from side to side, baraje, scatter nyash, ewajo, let’s party, lets get down, move your body etc chants. Don’t get me wrong, these party phrases ain’t bad, I aint gay. But when used in a bad song they sound stale or banal. But use them in a nice party song and you’ll see yourself loving every syllable of it. Eminem hardly ever does party tracks yet he’s one of the greatest rappers of all time. There are a million and one themes (like in American films) to rap/sing about. Songs mustn’t always be for clubbing, partying or dancing or about dance floor stuff. And even when they are for the clubs their lyrics mustn’t always be about clubbing. You could be spitting political on a funky beat and you get a song good to go for the clubs.

Big ups to Cosmo FM 105.5, an A class radio station in Enugu. (I guess I was wrong in my thought that A class radio stations…which are often always privately owned, existed only in Abuja and Lagos). They’re a very local/upcoming artist friendly station making waves in and around the East. Young artists; Massai, Resonance and Slo Dogg; who have been affected by them positively, promotion and publicity wise readily come to mind now. Cosmo FM helps me get by whenever I’m in Enugu. It’s funny but I’ve been here on campus in Enugu for close to two months now without hitting ABJ. Anyway I guess a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Modenine in the studio along with Jamix and Tonedeaf records CEO San Shawn editing “barbed wire” by Modenine and OD. Make sure you do all your home work before spending that money in the studio.

Gone are the days when all my thoughts were of (I used to dream of) making it in the rap game. You know releasing an album and blowing up big time. Times don pass, things don change. The industry in Nigeria is harsh and unorganized. We’re still very much at an infancy stage when it comes to artist welfare, marketing, exposure and publicity. Plus I guess I just ain’t feeling a rap career no more. I got other plans up my sleeve, but still I’m loving the Hip hop game and culture and will rep it till i die. I now do music for the love of music itself. I like music so I’m taking the once in a lifetime opportunity to express myself and in the process create something other people can listen to and feel.

I was in this state when I did the song you’ll soon hear. It’s the first new shit from me since about two years ago when I did my first two songs produced by Rule Clean. Now I’m feel I’m iller, a better rapper and so much better than I was when I did my first two songs. I studied a whole lot of emcees and switched up my flow considerable. So on this track I’m spitting ill and coming in straight English laced with occasional Pidgin English to get a cool Naija (Nigerian) style. The song is explicit though…contains swearing. I’ll probably head back to studio to do a radio friendly (clean) version.

I cooked up most of the ideas for the song and featured ODC on it. He’s one of the best emcees I’ve seen and really admire in my school. When you think of “hate it love it” The Game and 50Cent, “just a moment”- Nas and Quan, “renegade”- Jay-Z and Eminem, “Sounds Of Blackness”- Modenine and Mo Dogg think of this song. It’s called “from ABJ to UNN”. We’re repping ABJ (Abuja. Abuja is also known as the FCT, Federal Capital Territory) where we from and UNN (the University of Nigeria, Nsukka) where we school at on the chorus. I’m based in Garki Abuja while he’s based in kubwa (KUB) Abuja. UNN students are called lions and lionesses, so the campus is also called the den. It’s good you know this so you’ll understand the chorus (song). On the song itself we talk about the rap game, life and girls plus we’re just generally spitting to show our lyrical dexterity on a beat. The beat was made by E-Zone (my one time partner in rap when I used to perform in campus shows) and finishing touches were added by El-Cee. Chuks was in charge during recording, he also did the mixing and mastering. They’re a trio of guys in my school trying to start their production/studio thing and going under the name “Haunted sounds”. The song was done with the fruity loops software, it’s not of the highest sound quality but it’s good anyway. It was recorded on Sunday the 31st of July 2005. It was fun doing it, you know peeps were around and they were feeling it and giving suggestions when necessary. Chuks finished mixing and mastering it late into the early hours of Wednesday August 3rd 2005.

Click on the links below to listen to it lo or high streamed. I’m in love with the song and I’m sure you’ll like it. I welcome constructive critism.

Play “from ABJ to UNN” Hi or Lo filed/streamed

Hazy Abuja…students chilling in Nsukka(UNN). Props to napturalglory.com and pbase.com for the pics. Damn, when will I get myself a camera phone or a digital camera?

What should we consider as hip hop in its truest form? Of late I’ve heard and read so much talk on what is fake and what is real in hip hop. That guy’s not representing the culture well, artist A shouldn’t sing at all, artist B raps too much like an American while in fact he is Nigerian, artist C should stop making commercial songs (songs that are about chicks and partying), artist D gets it wrong as he promotes gun violence and the idea of quick money making etc.
I see this same old thing day in and day out on hip hop forums, blogs and websites and in discussions among hip hop lovers in everyday life. Well if you ask me I’ll tell you I stand and always will stand by the idea that’s it a free world! We all should do music the way we feel we can best do it/express ourselves in and are comfortable with. WHAT REALLY MATTERS IS THAT IN WHATEVER STYLE YOU CHOOSE TO DO YOUR THING YOU SUCCEED IN THE END IN MAKING BEAUTIFUL MUSIC WHICH IS PLEASING TO THE EARS. MORE SO BECAUSE IN THE END IT’S QUALITY MUSIC THAT IS REMEMBERED FOR LONG. So I say leave Modenine alone to do his hardcore thing, 2Shots his Naija pidgin English thing, afro-beat, high-life and Fuji peeps to do their songs, jazz and classical music peeps to listen to their music. Guys that like swearing to do so in their song, old school and conscious hip hop guys to do their thing and Lil Jon, Ying Yang twins and co to do their crunk pimping thing etc, It’s a free world man. It’s just like in the legal system; law should not be confused with morality. Its variety that makes the world interesting so we should learn to appreciate and live with it.

One world, different styles. 2Shotz, Modenine, Common.