Everywhere Stew
It’s 6 O’clock on a Sunday morning when Timmy is awakened by the sound of a couple of street evangelists singing slightly off-key into a rather loud megaphone, out on the street. He frowns and mumbles under his breath “These ones don come with their noise again”. He gets out of bed and steps out of their apartment, to the detached bathroom area which is shard by their next door neighbors.
As he groggily completes the distance between the room and the bathroom, he smells the aroma of the food which is unmistakably from the neighborhood’s popular food vendor, whom everyone calls “Mummy Junior”. He smiles at the thought of having some of her food for breakfast; the woman makes amazing stew.
He returns to the room after finishing from the bathroom and finds Mike-O still asleep, nearly snoring. He decides to prank him by shaking him aggressively and shouting “Wake up! Wake up! Them dey raid!” and Mike-O is instantly snapped out of his beauty sleep, and on his feet in a matter of seconds, confused but trying to take cover at the same time.
The prank comes to a head after a long minute of Timmy laughing hysterically and saying mid-laughter “Na cruise!!!”. Mike-O looks at his roommate and friend with a bit of disgust and lets out a “You dey mad, this guy” as Timmy continues to laugh. Shortly after, Mike-O joins in the laughter and they both playfully throw clothes at each other.
After they settle down, Mike-O then asks “So how today dey be bro? Update dey?” to which Timmy answers “Updates dey my G. Plenty sef. But first things first, you see that Mama Junior stew? I gotta anoint my stomach with it. You down?”. Mike-O lets out a short laugh and responds “I’m always down for some stomach infrastructure bro”.
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Sequel to a discussion with the CEO of Showtime Records & Entertainment, Big Mo, Timmy has forwarded a link to a collaborative music project he created with Mike-O early in their friendship. It had been released independently on one or two digital platforms but it never really got as much push as it should have.
Upon Timmy’s successful signing as the label’s main cover art designer, he had seized the opportunity to pitch his rap skills to the CEO, and by extension, pitched Mike-O’s music production skills as well. He had done this in the hopes of landing something at the record label that would be a strong enough platform for him and his friend.
Big Mo has now finally made the time, after consistent subtle reminders from Timmy, to listen to the set of three tracks. Like most music executives of his status, he has worked with many talents and has reached a point where he doesn’t necessarily need to listen to a lot of tracks in order to convinced of the level of an artist’s mavenry.
Halfway into the first song, titled “Cracks”, Big Mo is convinced that he is listening to talent he can work with. However, the process of signing an artist is not one that he hastily jumps at. He believes not just in talent but in character, and must see a decent blend of both before committing to any artist.
Big Mo decides to give Timmy a decent review of his music; enough to encourage his effort, but not enough to make him overly excited and lose focus. He appreciates Timmy’s artistic prowess, but also wants to observe other aspects of his personality before making the decision of signing him to do music or not.
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As the day comes to an end, Timmy and Mike-O sit outside their apartment, each holding a bottle of Pepsi, talking about their recent achievements. “Omo Mikey, e be like say things don dey look up for us small small o”. mike-O then takes a sip of his drink and replies “Yeah man. It doesn’t seem like much but we’re finally getting ahead somewhat. We dey move”.
They both talk a bit more and the conversation eventually wraps up when Timmy receives a text message from big Mo asking him to report to the label the following morning to discuss about the mixtape he sent. Timmy feels positive about the meeting and looking up from his phone, he says to Mike-O smilingly “Bro, no reason am. We’re about to hit it man, we’ll be eating some expensive stew soon”.
Mike-O takes another gulp of his drink before responding “Hmmm. Amen to that my G!”
By Oluwamayowa Akinyemi
Oluwamayowa Akinyemi is a digital and web content developer with experience in web content development and management as well as research and writing. He is an avid reader of random subject matters and a sucker for movies and video games. He is also passionate about youth empowerment and is a global affairs analyst and enthusiast.