When the posters came up on the
hostel walls that there was going to be a Talent hunt show coming up which was
organised by Femi Akinwunmi, I quickly registered for it as a rapper. The star
price was a CD player..my dream. I imagined being able to replace our old
cassette player and put on a CD like the rest of the boys.I practised my lines
and waited for d-day. 3 days to the event, I woke up with fever and to find my
body covered with little sores...I had chicken pox. I used calamine lotion like
my life depended on it, but they only seemed to increase by the day.
Then came the day
of the competition. Everyone dressed up and left one after the other to the
venue. I was in pain from the heat but in greater pain from being in that room
rather than on that stage. I was covered in calamine lotion, disappointed as
all my hope that I would have miraculously recovered in those 2 days had gone
and with it, my dream of a CD player.As I tried to play a tape on the radio to take my mind off everything, the cassette player wouldn't work. That was the last straw. In anger, I got up, washed off the lotion from my hands and feet, washed off my face and neck. I wore a long sleeve shirt, buttoned up and hit the road with my friend/manager...Bayo Adekeye. The walk from my room to the Uniben Auditorium was the most difficult 45 mins of my life...well, one of.
I got to the venue early enough, the competition was about to begin. I saw the brand new silver BUSH CD player on the stage...it was beautiful. I couldn't help but imagine. Then the compere, Tee A began to call out the names. Before long, I heard my name...I came out did my one track performance and in the second round,I switched the game at them,and did a comedy performance.
The next morning, our neighbours woke up to the loudest music, it came from our room, we were celebrating, singing, shouting and dancing to music from the shiny BUSH CD player on our table...and in midst of the crowd, a young dreamer covered from head to toe in white calamine lotion danced the hardest.....
The book comes out December this year.
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