Let's talk about The F-WORD

Hello beautiful people. If you are a Nigerian, I wish you a Happy Independence Day in arrears. My prayer is that Nigeria will be the great nation it really deserves to be.

It's been a long time that I've been excited the way I am now. Last week, something good happened to me, and it set me aflame. It got people talking on Social Media, Instagram especially. I released my first Spoken Word Video titled The F-WORD.

There is an ongoing, albeit unnecessary battle between sexes in this age. The F - WORD has become a vulgar word that is forbidden to be uttered in many places, but unless we face, head-on, these battles that are threatening to tear us all apart, we'll all be headed downhill, and no side will come out as the winner.

Now that you've killed me... The big question

The Beating Goes On (2013)
by Sigi Kolbe

With bitterness in your heart, You looked me in the eye, Thought of the government that failed you

Stabbed me in the chest after you tightened the noose you wrapped round my neck

Pulled the trigger that took my life, But took your soul in turn, and now that I’m gone

Does it make you a better person

You came home drunk, met me happy

Looked me in the eyes, but my excitement filled you with spite

You dragged me down the stairs

Ripped my fragile strands of hair off my scalp, the look on my face now that of fear

My head continuously bouncing off the descending steps like a Bball in the hands of Larry bird

Like an iterative step, you repeated the process over and over again

Cos stupid me was ready to stick with you over and over again

Till my life refused to stay one last time

And in protest, it said goodbye the final time

Now that I’m dead, with no more human bags for you to punch without reason

So tell me, has it made you a happier person?

This was a piece I wrote as part of a script for one 'Stop the Violence' spoken word video campaign I was involved in two years ago. We were 6 artists involved in the project. As usual, everyone wrote about why domestic violence is bad. I chose to flip mine, and write it in the voice of the abused, specifically when she was already dead.

I did this because, I know of men that beaten their wives to death. My friend never grew up with her mum because of this. The last memory of her mum she had was of her giving birth to twins in the labour ward after the husband beat the living daylight out of her, and the woman just gave up. Maybe she never wanted to return to the man alive anyway. My friend was about 10 years old, now left with 4 younger siblings. She became a mother very early. 

I have another story of my friend's aunt whose husband beat to death also. A former friend of mine also almost choked his wife to death. He was not remorseful. She still didn't want to leave him after that. He was even the one who kicked her out, with two kids that were less than 3 years old.

My question is how do these men feel, knowing they are the cause of their wives death? Are they remorseful, are they relieved? Do the faces of their children send them constant reminders, and cause them to repent, or are they happier? 

I don't have the anwer to the above question, but that was what inspired my part of the script.

So do you know anyone that has killed his wife in the process of wife battery? If yes, can you let us know, in the comment section, how he felt long afterwards?

You can watch the video project below.

A different and unusual kinda girl

Before reading this post, if you haven't voted for me, please, take about 20 seconds to vote for African Naturalistas hair products for the youth entrepreneurship competition. It requires just one click. Pleeeaaaaasssee. Thank you in advance. Click here to vote now, and come back to continue reading the post after.
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Hello beautiful and handsome readers of this blog. I want to tell you a story.

One day, an ordinary girl was born to a humble family. She was very ordinary, but her mum always believed there was an extra on top of her ordinary, although she could never see anything spectacular about herself. This was also aggravated by the fact that everywhere she found herself, she was always different. She sometimes felt bad that she was far different from everyone else, and could never conform. She was so different that everywhere she went, she was noticed. Not because she was cool, although she tried to be cool, but because she just DIFFERENT.

One day, she had a divine encounter, when God told her that she was the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Knowing this is a very popular phrase in the bible, she wondered for a second what that meant. He told her not to bother because there is no way one person can light the whole world, without Him being the one using the person, and that He would use her because she was DIFFERENT.

Since that day she felt bad again about her being different. She embraced it totally, and was even awarded the most different and unusual staff of the year, in her firm. In this age, her difference is what sets her apart, what propels her, and what makes people take a second look at her. She is indeed on her way to becoming the light of the world. One day, she will get there!

You can see how different she is, just by watching the one minute video below.



Oya o, people. Did you enjoy my story? I am sure you guys did not get the story behind that video. You were too busy being carried by my words and energy. Watch it again, and let me know if you actually got the story behind the video. If not, watch it again, lol, and this time, forget my face and my words. It's just a little over a minute naa. By the time you watch it five times, you should have gotten it. If not, I give up, watch it again... lol.

Now that you have gotten it, what are you waiting for? Subscribe to my youtube channel here joo. That trailer was not made for free o. Oya please I'm begging. No more harassment.

One more thing... don't forget to book me or recommend me for a performance at any event of yours. To read everything and anything about my spoken word artistry, click here.

Launching my Spoken Word brand on Blogsville

As most of you know by now, I perform Spoken Word on a professional level. I am therefore wondering why none of you in blogsville has invited me to perform at any of your events.

I am offering a different kind of entertainment, guaranteed to BLOW YOUR MIND! Don't hesitate to call me to perform at your wedding, events, conferences, concerts, funeral grandparent's funeral, etc.

I recently launched my Spoken Word Website. Please, click here to check it out, and let me know what you think about it. You will find many things about my Spoken word life there, including pictures, videos, and all.

You can also like my facebook page here.

Abeg, make una spread this love o. As a means of appreciation, you can watch the spoken word video below. It is a funny one about the love poem I will write to my future husband. You have the liberty to believe what I said in the video. It is your choice.

Thank you, beautiful people of Blogsville. Odi kwa too much. *Blows kisses at you*. How do you like my badge below? Don't let it blind you o, cos you still need your eyes intact to watch the video below it.

Using art as a tool against Domestic violence

Thanks to Hem Matsi of Victim 2 Survivors, and some talented artists in Namibia, these artworks and some other ones not in this post have been touring some countries, in a bid to fight Gender-based violence, what we call domestic violence in Nigeria. It all started from the National Art Gallery of Namibia, and from there, people were seeing the pictures, and were requesting for it to be exhibited in their countries.

This exhibition had just been concluded, just before the conference I attended at Geneva, but these gigantic artwork was still hanging on the walls of the UNAIDS building, so I took pictures with my iPad. Trust me, they are more breath-taking in real life. The brain behind the initiative gave me the brochure, and permission to share pics of my choice. She should be in Washington now, exhibiting the artworks. Enjoy them below.

Stand Together Against GBV (1998/99)
by Tity Tshilumba

Young Bride (2013)
by Hem Matsi

Against Men (2013)
by Findano Shikonda

A Mother's Sorrow (2013)
by Findano Shikonda

Dialogue In, Violence Out (1998/99)
by Tity Tshilumba

Set Me Free and Let Me Be (2013)
by Sigi Kolbe

The Beating Goes On (2013)
by Sigi Kolbe

Not Free (2013)
by Hem Matsi

My Bruised Art (2013)
by Jaimee-Lee Eugene Diergaardt

Six spoken word artists in Nigeria, including me, gathered together to shoot a Spoken Word video, to mark the International Day of Violence against women last year. In fact this was the first video UNAIDS saw me in before they requested for my profile and more videos, and thereby culminating in my trip to Geneva, Switzerland. It is called Stop the Violence.

The day I stood before kings

...Continued from last week

Before I delve into how the D-Day went, let me just give you some facts about Geneva.

1. It is the third most expensive city in the world. So, it is definitely not the town to go shopping like you are on Oxford street.
2. Shops close by 6pm everyday, and don't open on Sundays. Apparently, they do this because it is a family-oriented town. I am still trying to correlate this with the fact that prostitution is legal, lol.

Anyway...\
I was presenting on Thursday, and it was just when I was about to sleep on Tuesday, that is got the idea to take my clothes off on stage. I wondered if I would be able to pull it off in such a short time, plus this was a very formal audience. I was happy about the fact that the taking cloths off concept came to me because

1. It distracted me from the fact that I was slower than usual
2. It distracted the listeners from the fact that I was fast for them (I hope so).
3. I just felt the extra efizzy would be good for my spoken word career, lol.
4. It was good for those people who did not speak English.

At the instant I was performing, the piece was being translated to different languages. So if you don't understand it, all you need us to fix your earphones, and switch to the channel of your language. I just felt they wouldn't enjoy the punch lines, alliterations, and word plays, and all those poetic jargon, after being translated. So the extra drama was a form of compensation for them.

These is the mic, earphones and channels they use to switch between languages. Nigeria, what's the way forward o?

As looked around the room that morning, many things dawned on me about the crowd

1. 99% of them were not the colour of my skin
2. They were far older than me, and the crowd I normally stood in front of
3. They did not belong to the class I belonged to, they were political.
they did not understand poetic jargon like alliterations, punchlines, imagery, word plays and those words
4. They did not speak the way I do
5. THEY WERE DIFFERENT

The thing is, it is very easy to woo a familiar crowd, tickle their ears and give them what they want to hear. But in this case, you cannot really tell what would impress this crowd, or what they want to hear, because they we well, different. So I prayed... I prayed hard. There was no need coming all the way from Nigeria, and crashing my career on a global scale. I could have easily done that in Nigeria.  God, please, help me.

And help me, God did. Let's just say I almost ran out of complimentary cards by the time I was done. This group of people that hardly clap were almost forced to stop clapping. The lady in charge who used me as experiment was impressed, and Michel Sidibe, the head of UNAIDS was tripped. What more could I ask for?

Empty seats waiting to be filled with listeners who
would later listen to me

My game face on. Lol

Michel Sidibe (the brain behind UNAID),
and a teenage girl born with HIV

Famzing with the people in high places

Beautiful Fatima. She was married off at the age of 14,
and infected by her husband

And the covering came off completely

The youth delegates who anchored the last session. If you take out the two people on the extreme left, the 4 people on the extreme right, and Michel Sidibe in the middle, 98% of the people in this picture are either HIV positive, openly gay, or both

All the performance pictures are courtesy of Olivier Borgognon of 320 studio, Geneva.

So who can tell how many pieces of clothings I had on the ground by the time I was done with the performance?

Out of all the youth delegates that were present, it was just me and one other girl that was quite neutral. It was either they were gay, HIV positive, or both. And let me quickly mention that I just found out that the new political word for gay men in MSM. Don't think too far, it means Men who have Sex with Men.

Ehm, Toinlicious and Sykik. That is my hair with 60% shrinkage o. i.e, you can only see 40% of the length.

If you want to know how the clothes began coming off, watch this video below. And please, pay attention to the message. Feedback highly needed. Thanks

The Name by Atilola Moronfolu

Hi people. Remember the last video, when I said something was wrong with it?

Some people hit the nail on the head. I was too fast. And it was my fault, I didn't listen to my recorded self during rehearsals.

Now watch this one. Although there were a few parts I was unserious, but for a piece that was supposed to be serious, I liked it. It is actually the first video of mine I am watching without cringing all the way. Please, watch it till the end. you will be glad you did.

The Brain Drain by Atilola Moronfolu

Hi People,

This is one of my performances at the February edition of Word Up. I think there's something wrong with it, but watch and tell me what you think.

You can achieve that thing - My life as an example.

Before you read on, I would really appreciate if you read this interview of mine on the Women who write series on femme lounge, and drop comments.

Constant improvement is the really cool. I look at how far I have come in this Spoken Word thing. You guys all remember the first time I went to read my work, how bland and plain it was, even though I was reading from the screen. You can check it out here.

My first appearance was really dull, and I have been looking for the picture, but it seems to be missing.

Then we started adding life to it.

But we were still reading from either a screen or a book, and not performing

And then, we knew if we didn't take this serious, we would get left behind. So we decided to go into professional spoken word... So we dropped the paper, dropped the reading, and moved on to greater things - Performing.

And then we started getting inviting us to major and big events.

My first professional appearance. No more reading

 Plus our names started appearing on posters, flyers and DVDs with the veterans

And then, we started going for TV Productions for Spoken Word.

Performing at Unchained Voices

And then, we started doing Solo Spoken Word presentations at prestigious events like the International Day of the Girl. 

Performing at IDOG

Doing a combo of Spoken Word and Soul Music

What am I trying to say? When it comes to spoken word in Lagos today, my name gets mentioned, along with many other great people. Earlier this year, I knew absolutely nothing about spoken word. It is really God's grace.

If you put your mind to do anything, believe me, you will achieve it. I did not achieve my professionalism in Spoken Word on time, due to faults of mine... called laziness. At the end of the day, I lost nothing when I decided to be more serious.

Believe me, if you want to improve yourself in anything, you can. If you doubt that, scroll back up again, and look how I was when I started, and compare it to what it is now. The pictures themselves testify. For booking and reservations, please call 07061141501. Thanks

Its harder to get videos of professional performances of mine, than it is to get the crappy ones, which were loaded on youtube, but I got this one from the last Word Up.

It is titled The Wrestle. I featured my cousin, Oyinkansola (watch her video featuring brymo here). 

The video below does not start from the beginning of the performance, so the intro and round one of the fight, which is about two minutes long, is missing from the video. I hope you get the message behind the performance though. When I get the full one, and of better quality, I will upload it.

Blessing Gbeborun - Reading by Atilola Moronfolu

Hello people, if you live in the UK and have not entered for the UK giveaway of my book, Antonyms of a Mirage, well, times-a-runnin'. Click here to enter for the giveaway after reading the instructions.

So who listened to my interview on Wazobia FM ooo? It was so much fun. I spoke pidgin all through, as its the prerequisite to being on that station. I had a lovely time. Lolo1 of Wazobia FM is just too on point, and has a sweet sweet spirit. I ended up reading the Pidgin Poem I had in the book, as it was the most appropriate content for the station. I got a standing ovation from the Radio crew when I was done, and my head wanted to burst.

Blessing Gbeborun is my first and only pidgin poem yet. I remember that when I was doing the entry game, a lot of people voted for me to put this poem on the blog, but it lost with just one vote. Apart from the Wazobia, I have since performed it at two shows.

Before you watch the performance, permit me to quickly insert one gbeborun political story. I have followed the whole Edo state election story. I was particularly pissed with the people of Edo state when I heard that PDP was buying off their voters card, for as high as N40,000.00 sometimes. And as you know, once you sell your card, you sell your POWER to make a difference in this country. Since I am not really into violence, I feel the only collective power we have is our vote. I was so so so so so pissed, so pissed that I even wrote a stinker poem for the people selling the voters card. If you read this post I did one time, you will understand why I had such a high degree of 'pissedness'.

Come the D-Day, everyone came out and voted en-masse for Oshiomole. Okay now, where did lots of people get voter's card to vote if they sold it to PDP? JAMB Question. It was later found out that people were doing coloured photocopy and lamination of their voter's card and selling to PDP so they still had their original card and went ahead to vote for their preferred candidate. I laughed so hard when I heard this. Oh my gosh! See mass scamming. Them say 'Cunny man die, cunny man bury am.' Edo people, did I initially say I was pissed? No no no, I love you guys. This is exactly what an 'un-bornagain Atilola' would have done.

P.S: I don't support any party oo, as I am not interested in politics. I support candidates, not parties. I was just doing a political gbeborun on what I heard on political programs.

So, back to my Blessing Gbeborun poetry reading. /The setting of the story is the Typical face-me-I-face-you one. Sorry about the picture quality but see the picture below to get how I really looked in the video

Blessing Gbeborun by Atilola Moronfolu

On fire + Akanni Street - Spoken Word by Atilola Moronfolu

I thank you guys that rose to the occasion of helping me in the previous post. I have complied the suggestion and came up with just thirteen topics. This means I still have a long way to go so please and please, I still need your ideas oo. Click here to read and help if you don't know what I am talking about.

Yesterday was not a good day for me at all but I thank God that I am alive and kicking sha. Part of my car caught fire and burnt. I was so weak. Good Samaritans came to help me put the fire out. For the first time ever, I realised I did not have a fire extinguisher. A trailer on the other side of the express parked and passed his extinguisher to my side. I was too shocked to do anything reasonable. People helped me put the fire out and pushed my car to one side of the express. There are still good people in Lagos o, don't listen to everything you hear.

This incident has affected my schedule a great deal. I am supposed to have a reading at the US Embassy this afternoon, but I will be absent. Yes, I know its somehow , but if it were worse nko? From there, I am supposed to be at another reading event at Maryland in the evening. I can't even imagine going to the island in a cab at this period when third mainland bridge is being renovated. I can't be doing my normal up and down in this Lagos without a car as I spend 90% of my working hours on the road.

I decided to just sit at home and sulk a bit, then take time to thank God that my life was spared cos I believe my brain actually disconnected for some seconds as I did not seem to know how to unlock my door and get out. I was just praying for God not to allow the car explode. I am taking today to replace the burnt parts cos it must be ready today. Yes it will cost me some money, but meehhhnnn, I just have to close my eyes and do it, even if I might have to drink garri for a while. Another good news is that the car engine was spared.

Away from the bad news, lemme cheer myself up a bit. The video below was supposed to be a normal poetry reading, but it turned out to be something else, Maybe it was because of the topic or because of the way I read it. I think I read it as if the issue pains me, because sometimes it does. In fact, this particular poetry and video is what some people saw before I was invited to the US consulate to read some of my works, and they asked me to do this again there.

Some of you might remember when I posted the poetry version on this blog last year, as it attracted loads of comments.

Watch what happens in the middle of the reading. Even though the stuff wasn’t funny to me, I ended up being infected as I had to start all over again.

Antonyms of a Mirage - Cover and Book Trailer

Hi People, I am so sooooooooooo happy. Please, raise that to power 100. After an unnecessary two-month delay, which could have been avoided, the book is finally ready. Please, find the book cover below and the video trailer. I can now move on to other things.

Lemme know what you think.

Thanks

Below is the Book Trailer

Citizen of a Fallen World - 2 Renditions

Hi People, how is the week going so far? Remember the video I said I was trying to make 2 weeks ago? Well this is it below. It is my first Spoken Word video ever, so please, go easy on me o, lol.

The second video is the same Poem, but it was a live performance at the March edition of the Loud Thotz Open Poetry reading. I put it up because I remember promising that I would do better the second time around. So you guys can compare the second video to my performance here. Please, do not mind the weight loss, I already told you guys that I was ill am still recovering.

As for me, I prepare the made video to the live performance. Enjoy

1. Citizen of a Fallen World (Oral Poetry Video)



2. Citizen of a Fallen World (Live Performance)

My First Poetry Reading - Myopia

Good day people. Today's post is not one I am really proud to share, but must share all the same. If I knew I was gonna be on camera, I would have composed myself and gesticulated better, instead of standing like a statue. It was my first poetry reading ever. I recited my poem, Myopia. It was on blog last year and generated a lot of comments but it has been taken down.

Apart from my 10 year old birthday video when I was jumping up and down, I have never really watched myself on camera. I don't think I like the way my mouth moves sha, lol. I watched it and was like 'is this how I talk in real life?' I just had to cover my eyes.

This is a poetry reading session is called Loudthotz Poetry reading. It takes place every second Thursday of the month. I attended in January and really loved it, but was too ill to go for February's own. By the grace of God, I won't miss that of march. Join me there, if you can. I believe anyone that writes poems should be there to meet people of like minds. It is organized by Independent Poet Concerns.

Enjoy the video.

Yorubas: She is good, might even be better than you

Titi speaks about learning Yoruba

This is the first video I will ever share on blog. I had to cover my eyes in shame while watching it, because she is better than me in some aspects. And for all those Nigerians ashamed of their language, this is food for thought.

Even her intonation is impressive

Na wo o