I joined Facebook some two weeks back because of all the hype about it and I didn’t want to appear odd; but now I can truthfully say with all due respect to the site’s founders, staff and members that I don’t find Facebook useful anymore.

I’ve realized that I spend a lot of time on Facebook getting nothing constructive done, in other words I accomplish nothing by being on Facebook save for feeding my hunger for junk info. That is browsing profiles, finding out who knows who, reading people’s lifestyle updates, trying out applications and observing people try to outdo each other with pictures in a bid to look cool or hot. I’ve now come around to my senses to realize that all these are things I can really live without knowing/doing.

Another reason why I don’t find Facebook useful is their collection of too much data than is necessary; scaring the pants out of those who want to be incognito online. Their real name policy for account holders is the starting point of many people’s privacy concerns.

Yet another reason: I had sworn off social networking sites after Blackplanet.com. During my late teens in 2002 Blackplanet was where I cut my teeth as an internet citizen and got to know how the system works before aggressively familiarizing myself with other corners of the internet (wasting a lot of time and money in the process). That is to say I’ve been there and done that and so I can’t afford to go backward by getting addicted to another Social Networking Site with all its vices when ideally I should be progressing.

One more reason: I’m now of the conviction that if one wants to be cool (that’s a large part of what Facebook is about) it’s better done in more profound means by putting more effort into writing in one’s blog, selling products and brand advertising on one’s website, hosting one’s recordings on one’s music site etc (whatever catches your fancy) than by uploading pictures and making ego statements on Facebook.

To round things up I’ve now resolved to stay clear of Facebook. Instant Messaging (Yahoo Messenger), blogs, forums and email are better alternatives to me for social networking. I’d now rather sleep, read, study, listen to music or watch a film than do anything Facebook related. Don’t get me wrong though Facebook will no doubt still make a lot of people’s day but for me I’ve outgrown it. I don’t find Facebook useful so I’ve deactivated my account. I’m looking forward to completely deleting it soon. Cheers.

Two weeks in the villa “no be small thing oh!” I’m just glad that in the end I can say I was wiser for it; I paid my last respects and I gave my mum the befitting burial that she rightly deserved. Props to all who have had my back (via the internet, sms, calls, gifts, words, presence and deeds) over the past few weeks, I can’t thank you enough, you made a brother feel loved.

And talking about love, it’s now official! After years of languishing in singledom and waiting on love I’ve got me a girl. It feels good to finally find someone who I can afford (to keep). My new boo is a laptop, the Toshiba satellite A110-195! I’m still trying to get to know it better, do a little tweaking here and there and install one or two stuffs. I wish us many fruitful years together (I’m monogamist oriented, hope I don’t have to get a second wife or upgrade too soon), and now just like Globacom I can truly rule my world! “No be small thing oh!”

My mum’s passing away got me feeling all religious or more correctly coming into contact with a lot of religious…paraphernalia. In my usual religious musings way (don’t mistake my brief writing for simplistic analysis, I’m not one to expound too much in blog posts) I now strongly subscribe to the thought that atheist are getting it wrong big time by living in ignorance. I’m saying the Bible…Koran is too much of a highly structured literary work for one to still doubt that Jesus existed (or that there’s no God/Creator/Supreme Being) and still think that all that are in those books are mere fiction. I mean we’re talking about decades of logical history here, clearly the Bible is no super James Hadley Chase (bookworms fix your favourite author here) novel. Another point is the Mastermind argument (which I’ve always loved) which counters the Atheists’ claim that life just evolved on its own and as such there’s no Supreme Being. The argument goes thus: on sighting a television set common sense tells you that with all its complexity it must have been created by someone/something, it didn’t just evolve on its own. Thus common sense should also tell us that the world/life we live in was orchestrated by some Supreme Being. Yet another point is the barber story. An atheist who was a barber kept blabbing that with all the suffering in the world that surely there’s no God but someone shut him up by asking him with all the mad scruffy haired people on he streets will it be fair to say that there are no barbers? On the other hand…like some atheists I do have good reason to (partially) doubt the Bible and question God as to why he no longer reveals himself as explicitly as he did in the past; but with my Liberal Christian ideology I’m happy to say that I can sleep in peace at night. My brother/sister “no be small thing oh!”

P/S: No be small thing oh! (Nigerian Pidgin English) = It’s not a small matter. The phrase is increasingly popular these days due to 2face Innocent Idibia’s extensive use of it in his new album (titled Grass 2 Grace).

With all humility: The Toshiba satellite A110-195 “no be small thing oh!”

I confess that I had serious fears about teaching because save for minor tutoring of friends and relations on different occasions I’m seriously inexperienced in the field. But now I’m more confident, and sadly it’s partly due to the fact that the students I’ll be working with ain’t educationally sound (it won’t be an intellectually challenging job). The general standard of schools where I’m at is low. The students are so knowledge hungry yet so slow on the uptake. They were never given a solid educational foundation; the second-rate training repeats itself in the primary and secondary schools so they end up being merely “learned on paper”. I guess lack of finance is to blame and when one grows up in a community of non eggheads one can never reach his full intelligence potential.

Teaching as I see it is basically explaining what one knows to others. What you give your students they imbibe; you become the Alpha and Omega…students are so manipulatable! Anyways looking back at things now I feel that I could have done a much better job than some of the people who taught me when I was in school.

But talking about the present you should see the way I’m respected here. Good morning sir this, excuse me sir that. It’s all new to me and it’s a really pleasant surprise. Another pleasantry is going to be having a room to myself for the first time in my life! On the unpleasant side is the fact that there’s no strong FM radio or TV signal here! I never taught I’d find myself in such an information poor situation :(. Anyways thank God for compact discs. Hip hop album check: Modenine’s “Pentium ix”, check; Freestyle’s “free at last”, check; OD’s “don’t hate”, check and Pherowshuz’ “House of raps (rap-representaTIVs)”, check. I sure do hope to have a “SOUND” service year :). Nice play on words huh ;)?

And for the really unpleasant: we’re “loosing” a lot of quality bloggers in the Nigerian blogosphere; it pains me a lot. Back in the day it was Teju Cole, Obifromsouthlondon followed suit weeks back and now it’s Sir Aihammed Delot. Because of that let me put you up on some (if you’re down with the blog thing). Your blog is meant to complement you and not to stress you. What I’m saying is blog easy and on your own terms. And please don’t put stuff that’s too personal online or stuff that you’ll regret later…especially when you’re not blogging anonymously. The internet has a very good memory you know…Ok class dismissed, i’m out.

To Sir with Love; great book, great film.

Where are the Northern Nigerian intellectuals? The question came to mind after reading two articles from The Nigerian Village Square; which by the way is an excellent site. Someone might argue that the south controls the press and so the North is suppressed but what about the internet? It’s supposed to be no mans land but surprisingly of the blogs, forums and Nigerian portals I read input from people of Northern extraction is often minimal. Even a look at the Nigerian diaspora in Europe and Northern America suggest that numbers from the north are but a handful. Or could it be that since the North is predominantly Muslim they prefer the Arab countries? Or maybe it’s the simple mathematics that since they’re less literate there are subsequently less intellectuals? I might be going up North in a few weeks’ times so maybe I’ll find out for myself.

In light of the fact that a number of the Nigerian bloggers I read recently spoke on religion I’m seizing the opportunity to say my own religious bit. If one was born a Christian he’d love Christianity and think it’s the one true religion. If born a Muslim he’d love Islam and think it’s only way to go. Likewise if born a pagan like in the days of our forefathers he’d love his gods and think that’s the shit. Crazy ain’t it? But bro the fact is that religion is like college fraternities. You join and subsequently follow the rules of whichever you choose. All have unity in mind, all worship the same God and all have their various highs and lows. In fact the biggest bad of religion is that all claim to be un-contradictory and perfect as a way of life when in fact none is perfect. Don’t get me started on the imperfections, Google is your friend. The funny thing is as much as they have contradictions we still need ‘em. So do your thing people; for me I’ll most likely be found in the Catholic Church.

When it comes to male-female stuff it’s often the guy that initiates the topic for discussion and then both get chatting (especially when they’re at the getting to know each other stage). But there’s room for exception, we love a girl who keeps us captivated, listening, laughing and going with her flow. In fact I really hate it when a girl calls me and has nothing to say; you know expecting me to dictate the flow. Bitch you called, speak to me, stop making me look like a jerk, I’m not Dave Chapelle you know, I don’t get paid to talk. Wallahi such stuff makes me want to decree that if you ain’t calling me about money (money coming to me, if you’re a guy) or sex (if you’re a girl) then don’t bother calling me.

Perfection can only be found in football, music, pictures…things of that sort

A few days ago I was checking my blog stats like I normally do and I saw I was getting crazy hits from the BBC. I put on my imaginary glasses and discovered I was quoted in an article titled: “Blogging Africa’s World Cup”. The article is basically a collation of a few African bloggers take on the ongoing WorldCup. Damn, that’s totally righteous man. It’s nice to get the chance to represent Africa at something.

I swear it’s cool watching football with no strings attached. Patriotism can be a real muther******. I remember our loss to Côte d’Ivoire at the ACN2006 semi-finals; I’ve never been as annoyed because of a match as I was then. I was raving and yelling through out the game and at blast of the final whistle I felt like crying. Added to that Momsie teased me after the loss and I stormed out of the house angry. But you should see me now; I’m a big flirt football wise and its fun!

As much as the WorldCup is a melting point of cultures, the national teams are melting points of another kind. You can find peeps of all types repping one country. And it’s courtesy of the mix-raced thingy, immigration and emigration, acquired citizenship and footballers playing for the countries of their parents. Checkout Figueiredo and Ricardo of Angola or the black dominated French squad with space sef for the Indian like Dhorasoo to fit in. it’s a beautiful thing ain’t it?

I think it’s about time God sent me a laptop. Computers are so much a part of my life that it’s criminal for me not to have one. There’s only one PC at my crib and PHCN issues coupled with sharing issues often deny me the chance of enjoying the damn thing to the max. I swear PC waiting is worse than TV waiting (sitting through a boring program on TV and not being able to change it cos someone else is watching it). Just as some Nigerians like to say “South South for Presidency in 2007, non negotiable!”; I’m saying I need to use the PC when I need to use the PC, non negotiable!

I’m tired of reading/hearing stuff from people (arguing with people) at the opposite end saying Hip hop is bad, Hip hop is dead, Nigerian artists sound and sing too Westernized, Hip hop artists swear too much, TRAE stop swearing…whatever man. “That’s how it is” by OD is just what the doctor recommended. Over and out.

The Black stars of “Africa”, una well done

When it comes to laying out thoughts, Ayo Akinfe of the cybereagles forum does it in style. He’s a ten-pointer specialist! You might want to call me a copycat because for the second time in a row I’m dropping three-pointers in a blog post. This time on what I’ve learnt from my months of blogging and surfing of Internet forums.

1) I’ve become an all round better writer and (a faster) reader. No be lie man. Being all words you can’t be heavily into this blogging and forum stuff and not have improved literarily. It makes me want to beat the shit out of the TRAE of 2003. God know say I don dey blow grammer/vocab small small. Words like hackneyed, pontificate, condescending etc have now become commonplace to me. Chei! Illiteracy na bad thing.

2) My conversation skills have been polished. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my years of Internet chit-chat/dialogue it’s that violence begets violence. You can’t correct a person by abusing him. Your advice might be right but not going about it nicely only creates room for more acrimony. You hit, he hits back, you strike, he strikes back; it all goes on in one childish vicious cycle. Thus the only means of better interpersonal relations is to be civil always.

3) I’ve learnt to respect women. It’s not that I was misogynistic before oh! It’s just that you can’t be reading all this female stuff and seeing life from their point of view and not feel a thing for them. You know sexual harassment stuff, domestic chores stuff, employment opportunities stuff, childbirth and parenting stuff etc. But I’ll be truthful; my newfound respect is partially because of the many “feminist” on prowl. Stick to the script most of the time and just fall out of line for a second and they’ll give your ass a mighty public whooping. At times they just love taking it to the extreme. Now who said force wasn’t a good way of instilling fear and respect into people. And so the females have made a perfect gentleman out of me…but I ain’t without flaws though.

Blogging and surfing of forums sure has schooled my ass…I’m like the happy schoolboy

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.

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!

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

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.