On FL Studio.

I was a rapper. Actually I am a rapper. I started rapping a quite a few years ago - more than a decade ago to be honest, but I didn't take it seriously for a while. When I did begin to take it serious I realised there was something I needed - beats. I had all these ideas in my head but they couldn't become songs until they had the boom-bap of  drums with a few notes laid over them now, could they?
I wasn't too bothered by my lack of instrumentation in those days, as I was still in school and saw music as something for a future which at that time seemed far far away. I ended up joining a group and becoming one of the main attractions in said group - for my un-rapper-like looks and my rapid, staccato delivery, a combination which still makes people go wow when they first hear me (the novelty wears off rather quickly though)
Anyway, we had a few beat courtesy of an in house producer (there wasn't 4shared.com in those days so we couldn't download beats to freestyle on), so we were doing pretty well. Then one day I saw our in-house producer at work (His name is WazBeat, and you ought to know him if you're a Naija music fan). He was using a piece of software called Fruity Loops, and I think it was version 3.5. I was fascinated.
Over the course of my time in Ife I started making beats - and WazBeats sort of drifted away from the group (he was never an active member, just our beat-source). So I became our in house producer. I cringe when I listen to the beats I made those days.
Fast forward a few years and I'm still using FL Studio, version 9 now. Version 10 just came out and I can't wait to get my grimy paws on it and go crazy with all the great new features. Things have really changed, and now I can't even remember life without Sytrus and Hardcore and all the external plug-ins I've added to it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is FL changed my life, and I must admit I'm grateful. To every mac-based producer who pours scorn on we lowly PC people I say thanks for your condescension, it's only made Image-Line stronger.

Try out the new FL Studio 10 - the latest FL Studio iteration. It just might be in you.

Darkness

In a darkened crevice of my mind
There hides a ray of sunshine
A memory
A recollection of a time
When laughter came easy
And life was sweet
Well at least much sweeter than it is

In a darkened crevice of my heart
There hides a flicker of joy
A happiness
So different from this moodiness
Why won't it grow and fill my soul
Or is it me
That hides it from the sun?

In a darkened crevice of my spirit
There hides a spark of holiness
A zeal
A passion for the truth of God
A yearning to be like His son
And live for Him
And with him eventually eternally

A Poem

I know not

Yet I continue to speak

Am I ignorant?

Is that what you think of me?

But stop to think

If I am ignorant and yet speak

Does it not tell you I do not care?

I feel not

Yet I tell you I love you

Am I a monster?

Is that what you think of me?

But stop to think

If I am evil yet you cling to me

Does it not tell you what you are?

I trust not

Yet you try to know my heart

Am I impossible?

But stop to think

If I can never trust you

Does it not tell you we can't be?

I am not

Not knower nor feeler nor truster

Do I even exist?

But stop to think

If I care enough to tell you all this

Does it not tell you that I love you?

On homophobia

Before I begin, let me say that this blogpost is about male homosexuality. I have no opinion on lesbians.
I'm homophobic. I just wanted to make that clear. But I don't hate queers, I mean phobia as "an irrational, intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people". I'm terrified of being sexually assaulted by a dude. Nah scrap that. I'm terrified of even being chatted up by a dude. I get extremely uncomfortable. 
On the other hand I think people should and do have the right to shag whoever they please as long as the other party is in agreement. Just don't try to make me think I should like the idea that two dudes are 'doing the dirty', as one of my twitter followers so eloquently puts it.
Now I've made it perfectly clear I'm not gay or bisexual and am terrified of even accidentally becoming so. So I can move on.
It's weird the way we're fascinated with finding out who's homosexual or not. A few years back, a guy wearing skinny jeans would be classed gay, especially if he was black. It still happens once in a while. Now certain colours are associated with homosexuality. I'm as guilty as anyone - but now I have a valid reason to stop making that assumption.
I've always liked the colour purple, but recently it's become something of an obsession. I can't see a nice-looking purple item in a store and not think 'I want that.' So much so that I've acquired a number of completely purple outfits one item at a time, as well as my by now overlooked purple framed prescription glasses (which I recently stopped wearing for no reason).
Now I mention how much I like purple and I get called gay. That's frankly ridiculous. There is a tendency to ascribe a certain lifestyle to gay people, but funny enough the man who is probably the most well known homosexual in the world, Sir Elton Hercules John, doesn't live it. Neither do most actually gay people, if I'm correct. I only know of two people who I could take one look at and class gay. They're both effeminate and extremely affectionate, and they both insist they're not gay. I'm inclined to believe them, and the reason is simple - you're not gay until your penis has penetrated another man's anus or vice versa (I'm retching as I write this). That's just the crudest way of putting it. All I'm saying is, it's sexual activity that determines sexual orientation, and fashion, lifestyle, and other things can only vaguely point to one's true orientation. 
I've seen many comments on twitter about the song "I need a doctor". It's been labelled gay so much I almost started to believe it was. But that brings me to another thing. Can't men love one another? Can't you feel so strongly about a dude without having the slightest sexual thought about that person? And is it wrong to tell that guy how important he is, and how much you cherish his friendship without being labelled a fag? These are just questions I ask myself when I get uncomfortable when dudes say "I love you man". Society has made us even more homophobic than we were before gay rights activists started telling us to stop being homophobic. I mean, if David and Jonathan were alive today the whole world would be buzzing with gay rumours. "Isreali Prince professes love to War hero" would be a likely headline. Or "Royal bromance." to use a word I absolutely hate. What happened to just being really good friends? Some still say they were in a gay relationship and quote David as saying "very pleasant hast thou been unto me; wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women" (2 Samuel, 1:26). But is that any different from when modern black men say "homies over hoes"?
Anyway I don't expect you to be really interested in the way my mind works. However I do expect some of the more narrow minded of you to call me gay for writing this, and thus prove my point.

Another, totally unrelated short rant

"Those who came to welcome me, they branded as celebrating corruption. What a joke. They call me ex-convict; look, I won’t be the first and won’t be the last. Mandela was an ex-convict, Baba Awolowo was an ex-convict, and these are great men. They made it look like you being there, you are finished. If you don’t go through fire, you can never rise beyond mediocrity and ideology. You cannot!"

BODE GEORGE.

Erm. I don't know where to start tearing into this fool. I only ask that no one asks me to show respect or restraint, as he deserves neither one nor the other.

I think to get my head round the nerve of the 'man', I'll analyse his statement piece by piece, giving my opinion of said creature as I go along.

"Those who came to welcome me, they branded as celebrating corruption..."
In August 2008, the EFCC under its head Farida Waziri arrested Olabode George in Lagos and arraigned him and four others on a 163 count-charge of conspiracy, disobedience to lawful order, abuse of office and alleged illegal award of contracts worth N84 billion while he was chairman of the NPA. After the trial had started, the EFCC reduced the charge to 63 counts. In October 2009, Bode George was found guilty and sentenced to jail for 30 months. The sentence was handed out by Justice Joseph Olubunmi Oyewole. The judge found the defendants guilty on 47 out of the 68 counts. The total sentences added up to 28 years, but the counts for disobedience to lawful order were ruled to run concurrently for six months, and the counts for contract inflation then to run concurrently for two years.

The above excerpt from his Wikipedia article shows they weren't wrong. If he wants to claim his Wikipedia entry is spurious, he should know that every fact mentioned is from a cited source.

"What a joke..."

As a prisoner, Chief Bode George and his colleagues were placed in the V.I.P. section of the prison. They were not required to wear prison uniforms, and were allowed to have meals prepared by their families.
Is that what a man serving time for corruption is supposed to get. If his offences had been minor then maybe this would have been fitting punishment. But here is a man who was meant to serve a 28 year sentence, who should have rotted away in a tiny cell with a tiny window near the ceiling. He should have been served N5 crackers and pure water for breakfast and supper (no lunch). And he calls people making a valid inference a joke. His jail term was a joke!

"They call me ex-convict; look, I won’t be the first and won’t be the last."

Well this is true. I guess there's a sliver of honesty in even the most delusional people. And as an ex-convict he should be treated like one, not feted like a hero coming back from a successful war! And in any case this sentence was only a preamble to what is one of the most ridiculous statements ever uttered by a megalomaniac.

"Mandela was an ex-convict, Baba Awolowo was an ex-convict, and these are great men"

While this statement in itself is true and expresses a noble sentiment, in the context of the entire paragraph it becomes part of the ravings of a delusional man. 

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for fighting apartheid which would ultimately have damned his country. Obafemi Awolowo was a political prisoner, a casualty of the dirty politics which is typical of 'our dear country'. Add to that list Olabode George, martyr for corruption, patron saint of dirty rotten thieves. And a great man too!

"They made it look like you being there, you are finished."

No one said that you ignorant fool, what we said is you're corrupt, your assets should be seized and donated to charity, and you should never show your face in Nigerian politics again. No one really cares if you live till you're a hundred and eighty and have a huge farm in the middle of nowhere and make billions a year, we just don't want to see your ugly face on our televisions acting like you're some kind of superhero. You're not. You're a shameless man and if you had any dignity you would quietly fade like the sun at the end of the day.

"If you don’t go through fire, you can never rise beyond mediocrity and ideology. You cannot!"

Bode dear, you can never rise above mediocrity if you don't admit your faults and attempt to make amends for them. You are such a hypocrite! You were allowed meals from home and granted VIP status! In prison! In fire terms, that's like a wet matchstick! 

Okay so I've ranted and I'm cool now. It might be slightly incoherent, but I wasn't aiming to write a well structured article here - I just wanted to vent my increasing frustration with our 'leaders'. Some people call them toothless - I disagree. They're venomous, poisonous leeches. I sincerely hope we don't get to the stage where the only suitable apotropaic is revolution.

To end this, I'll use a quote from one of my favourite Nigerian politicians. I don't like him because he's a good person, but because he's a colourful figure and brought in a good replacement for himself when he left office. 

"...the Yoruba say, if you crave not to be disgraced and you are, you pray for long life so that you can rectify the disgrace... 

...the ludicrousness of Chief Bode George’s claim is self-evident, except of course, the chief suffers from post-prison and pre-reintegration dementia..."

BOLA TINUBU

A Short Rant

Erm this is a bit impromptu so pardon any errors I might make in my haste and primal rage!
It has always upset me the way people get so interested in the relationships of people who entertain them. I mean is it honestly any of your business what REALLY went down between Chris and Riri? Or will knowing give you some strange superpower that you can use to make the world a better place? That irks me somewhat, but there's something that irks me so much more. Lying about other people's relationships.
Apparently, some cross-eyed, colour-blind retard saw Zara and Jesse Jags making out at GET. Or maybe said retard is actually psychotic and was just hallucinating said events. One way or another one thing led to another and some 'journalist' (for want of a better word) decided to run with the 'story'. The said story is more holey than Swiss cheese, but then again, what do you expect.
Now a few things spring to mind.

1. If two consenting adults decide to make out then it's their business - not yours, not mine, but theirs. (That is of course, if they're not porn stars making out for your perverted entertainment)
2. If said make out session is alleged by spurious sources then said allegation should be properly investigated before the story is published (for example, why wasn't the manager who supposedly nabbed them interviewed - he would be the most logical reliable informant)
3. Grown ups who aren't completely wasted don't make out in toilets. It's not comfortable and it's not fun. There are rooms to be got for such purposes.
4. Jesse's girlfriend was at the venue - if he wanted to make out he could have just pulled her. 

The story really doesn't make much sense and as I said earlier it's really none of our collective businesses what really went down. By the way if I'd been there I probably would've made out with Zara - she's fly like that. 

Last thing - if thenetng.com doesn't mind publishing scandal for the heck of it, let's spurn them for the heck of it. We're spoilt for choice as far as Naija blogs go - 360nobs, jaguda, bellanaija, notjustok... Let's stick to blogs that stick to what we expect of entertainers - Entertainment.

Second last thing. Fuck a hater, and a pedlar of bullshit!