In Bed With Weird MC

In Bed With Weird MC

I love Weird MC. Although when I say so, I mean it in ways other than how a man usually loves a woman. Since her days with the Group Weirdos to her Allen Avenue album (actually titled, Simply Weird), I’ve admired the Weird one. I’ve loved her music. Her doggedness. And the way she likes to do her things like a man. Her column in Hip Hop World was like a Bible for upcoming artistes. And they all queued behind her. Some of today’s heavy weights would kneel down and thank Baba God if they had the privilege to shake hands with or record a track with the Weird one. Weird was big and in demand. While artistes her grade still jumped buses or managed to hire cabs, the young lady was driving her own car. One day, I was riding in a public bus with an artiste friend. Seated by the window, I saw Weird’s red Celica approaching and I tried to wave her. My friend cautioned me rapidly and tucked his head like his life depended on it. Of course, I had a good laugh at him after that. Weird was already winning awards and hitting the Benson & Hedges stage while most acts today still sucked their mummy’s breasts.

While many continued to criticize her song writing and rap skills, Weird continued to do her thing. She recorded a remix of Fela’s Palava. And made African woman. We applauded. And she took a trip to the UK. I’m gonna mix my album, so she told us. But Weird would spend the following seven years of her life in London, away from the country that gave her fame and fortune. And was promising her more. Up till now, Weird has not explained what glued her butts to London. But for seven years, between 1998 and 2005, Miss Shola Idowu was gisting with the Queen while music industry back home took a different dimension. While we heard nothing of the music she had gone to mix, news broke that she had admitted to a British-Nigerian magazine (Omega) that she was indeed a lesbian as many had speculated. Before then, there had of course, been hush hush talks of Weird’s sexuality (and a rumoured affair with Bunmi Sanya, remember her?) but it all remained hush hush, something we all talked about in our closets. I doubt if anyone ever confronted her with it until the said interview. As expected, the interview scattered any little reputation the rapper had left, and it appeared to have joined hands with her long absence to nail the coffin of her once promising career. I pitied the Weird MC. And friends who encountered her I London did not mince words about her unimpressive status and her ambition to return home to rebuild her career. She has guts to want to return? Where would she start? Things have changed! Each time she sent me a mail, telling of her last show or a new song she just recorded and who’s feeling her shit (without their fingers in her anus. Apologies to cyhpa MC Mode Nine), I’ll laugh to myself, convinced that it’ll be more difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a returnee, scandalized artiste like Weird MC to return to the charts and reestablish the career she abandoned seven years ago. If I were a Pastor, I would have preached it. At 37, what point did the girl-boy have to prove? Where was she even going to start from and who’s gonna listen to her anyway?

But as I write, laying o my bed, punching lazily on my keyboard, I’m listening to Aunty Sola’s (yeah, we can call her so, and I suggest we all start to – she’ll soon be 40!) comeback songs Ijo ya and Da way we blow. Every night before I hit my oversized bed, I must, as a matter of addiction, listen to Ijo ya – that’s before listening to Lagbaja’s Emi mimo, which actually drives me to slumber. And if you want to wake me up in the morning, just play Ijo ya and leave the volume at 60. You see, I like to sleep with Weird MC. And I don’t sleep with my boxers on. Hey, mischief-makers, that’s not what I mean. Well, think what you like. I hear she doesn’t do guys. But seriously, I’m amazed at the wizardry on Weird’s up coming album. And I’m ashamed to admit that I was one of those that had written her off. Not that we hate her, but Weird is about the first returnee act to take her game right where she left it – well almost – in a matter of months. Not even Orlando Julius could pull it off before he fled to Ghana. Her songs are still in tune with present trends in the music business, her Energy hasn’t diminished by a single joule and she still clutches that boy rapper attitude that endeared her to most of us. It takes guts, lots of it, and a staunch determination to return in the manner of weird, and take up residence here again, to give her career a last shot at success. Not even Pa Ambrose Campbell, Mike Okri or Tony Allen have been so bold. That’s why I’m happy that her return is yielding dividends already. And I have no doubts that (s)he’ll soon have promoters and awards organizers chasing after her like American visa. Weird’s story is a lesson to all those stuck abroad, deluding themselves about their real situation, to pack their master tapes and return home. For the likes of Esse Agese and Jide Chord who have taken Weird MC’s step, I hope they’ll be quick to make music we can nod our heads to and they can hit the stage with (hey, who said that?) I’m off to bed, where’s my Discman?