King Ifey's Blog

The Admixture of Humour and Tears: The Case of Reward Nsirim's Fresh Air and Other Stories It is only on few occasions that I have encountered a book and yearned so badly to meet the writer, stretch my hand forward for a warm handshake and say: "Thank you very much for that book of yours, it is marvelous!" I do remember that the last time I was this excited was when I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun , other times were my first encounter with Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God, Richard Wright's Black Boy , Buchi Emecheta's  Joys of Motherhood and of course Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom (great novels!). My love for these stories are due to their ability to draw water from my eyes (and I should have you know that I am never the crying type). However, this writer is in a different category from the above mentioned writers, Reward Nsirim seeks another kind of tears from my eyes, the type oft' accompanied with laughter! R...

This is Imaobong's new single,  GLORY. It has been on repeat since I got this song. Imaobong has never undelivered in her entire life and in this album, she sure has put her critics to shame. This lady's has sung virtually every note, people  thought couldn't be sung, under the shade😃. She started out with I AM BLESSED, then she went ahead to release NANI GI(you can dance this one with your handkerchief😃), finally she GLORY is making wave  in Nigeria. Here are facts about GLORY by Imaobong. Most ladies would complain it too low and two high. Yes the song spans  nearly 3 octaves , and she sure hit a note above High B5  in that song. This is something most ladies wouldn't dare in full voice. Well, she learnt from Karen Clark Sheard and Tasha Cobbs. The song has a slow pace but sung with a heart-shattering powerful voice It also reeks of the dexterity with which Mercy Chinwo's Excess Love  was produced. The backup sing...

BESSIE HEAD AND HER WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER When I opened the first page of Bessie Head's WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER yesterday, my intention was just to read a few pages to put me in a relaxed state after the stress of composing several pages of an essay I had been working on all through the day. But I found myself reading more than the few pages I had earlier anticipated. Little was I to know that the novel would hold me spellbound late into the night and till the early hours of this morning when I arrived at its last page! Before my encounter with Bessie Head's works, what I have read about her here and there was that she was a writer who tried to escape the oppressive life of apartheid South Africa into a world where she could live, love freely, and be at one with mother nature. Well, being a little bit of a radical myself, I decided that I would not like her at all. I could not understand why a writer would make the choice of becoming an exile and take refuge in a...

Would you like to dance  to a beautiful songs that you can wind your waist to in that classic traditional African style with your handkerchief and a big grin? Listen to Werelo Bari by Nora J who earlier this year released her single 'Tuolera'  'Werelo Bari' gives the indigenous Port Harcourt  sound a more contemporary  feel. The song is partly sung in both the English and the Ogoni language. Well, the part that grips me so much is the part where she sings in the Ogoni language. There is something very magical that makes you want to grab an imaginary handkerchief and begin to dance to the rhythm. Happiness courses through my vein as I listen to it , you know why?  The song is an expression of gratitude  to God. I am God's love. Ife Oluwa,  Ifunanya Chukwu. In Ogoni, they say,  Werelo Bari. So, download the song and listen. Get infected with unbridled happiness and share with your friends. Download the song right here

The Old Wild West in L. Ron Hubbard's Branded Outlaw You need not be an American or Mexican to know of the Wild West. You must have read about it or seen a movie inspired by it. Those of us born in the late eighties and early nineties remember that time when we plagued our mothers to get us jean jackets with hats while we went about pretending to be cow boys. I remember that one of my favorite movies then was the one titled "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and I do remember seeing some of Van Dame movies where he played out the roles of a cowboy. You may say violence is not good for kids but we saw all these things in movies back then sitting side by side adults who were as much engrossed as we were in the magic of the Wild West. Besides, there were also cartoon versions of cowboy heroes and gunslinger movies.  The Wild West depicts the United States in its frontier epoch when men were proud gunslingers, when justice was decided by the barrel of a gun held by ...