Kayode also known as K’roy to those who grew up with, that’s my homeboy right there! Me and this nigga and a couple of other folks drank from the same fountain as lil boys. We threw stones at mangoes together on our way from school.
Born and bred in a small town in the middle belt of Nigeria, we grew up in a time and place where folks looked out for each other, windows were without bars and people opened their doors to one another. Our town was strategically located in a valley, but if you pay mind to some old timers, they’d beat it into your scull that the location was chosen by God himself for their ancestors. Green mountains and hills lovingly wrap their arms around the town like a well built wall fence. A stranger comin’ to town for the first town will be amazed by the view; it’s a view similar to someone lookin’ down at a beautiful city from a skyscraper…some majestic shit!
K’roy and I were best of friends and we’re still cool but y’all know what time and space and life’s hustle can do the folks you used to know and relationships you used to have, right? We were in the same class throughout secondary school, even had our desks next to each other every step of the way jus so we could bullshit together and ultimately copy each other durin’ tests and exams. Umm, did I say copy each other? Truth is, I did most of the copyin’! Lol.
When it came to chicks, my buddy had a lil game goin’. He had that cool laid back demeanor about him and that shit always made them lil Shawties wanna hang wit the dude. Did I mention he was a shy nigga? Oh yeah he was and so was yours truly (still I am) but the difference was, he often went beyond the shyness barrier to holla at them lil tails while the little me hung in the background.
One of things that really got me and K’roy bonded was music, we loved music to death and we had a lot of it and it was all thanks to Payus electronics and record shop which was jus two doors away from my crib ( Kay had a record store around his neighborhood too but the one in my hood was the best…yes!)
I definitely owe a higher percentage of my love for music to Payus’ record shop, that nigga would open every day except Sunday from 8 o’clock in the morning til 10 pm at night. He’d travel to Lagos every week to hook up all the latest records (on vinyl, of course) and we would all be waitin’ for his return like the second coming of Christ. He would usually slide those records on in the evenings when the sun had gone down cause that was the time grown folks who bought records would come around. Lil punks like me jus freeload on the good music he pumped out of his speakers; we ain’t got nada to buy vinyl or tapes with!
Since I couldn’t pay to buy new cassettes, I’d steal from my granny’s gospel tapes (good women choir, Shola Rotimi etc), take it to one of my favorite uncles in the neighborhood and told him to hook me up wit New Edition or whatever record was hot at the time.
1991
MC Hammer was the business back in 1991, nobody could touch this nigga! He had most young adults rockin the Arabian baggy and that funny hair style. I wasn’t old enough, my granny wouldn’t let my lil ass wear one of those and I never sported his hair style cause I didn’t dig it (my lil head rocked Bobby Brown and Mike Tyson’s iconic hairstyles though).
Though, MC Hammer had everybody rockin’, he wasn’t the only one, there were other jams that got people excited, there was Paula Abdul’s Rush Rush, Color Me Badd, Luther Vandross’s Power of Love and some other monster tunes I can’t recollect right now on; I got them all on cassette courtesy of uncles, Femi (RIP). Guess what else I got on that tape? Now That We Found Love (What Are We Gonna Do with It) By Heavy and the Boyz!
There were two main reasons why that that particular cassette became unforgettable for me
One, It was the first well made song collection I ever had (as a lil boy, shit like that meant a lot) and two, my nigger K’roy tricked me and travelled to Jos (a city in central Nigeria) on holiday with it for two months!
My buddy K’roy “Judas’d” me like that! Forget Italian Job and the Ocean’s series, K’roy pulled the greatest heist mankind had ever seen.
He came to me that he wanted to make a copy of the tape and he’d return it the next day. The next day came, my boy was nowhere to found…the lil punk ass skipped town first light the next day and didn’t return until sixty days later!
R.I.P
Payus, Femi (my Uncle from around the way) and the newly departed, D. Arrington a.k.a Heavy D. thanks for the music. Shout out to my K’roy for stealing that cassette. Lol
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