THIS SHIT HARD!

I speak not of the proverbial shit, but of the literal one.

I started writing this at 2:09 PM GMT+1 while listening to one of my favourite songs of all time, Eminem’s Guts Over Fear. As I finished that sentence, I remembered another favourite of mine, Kendrick Lamar’s FEAR, and I will be adding that to my queued song immediately after I finish this sentence.

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I have now added FEAR to my queue and am now listening to the second verse of Eminem’s Guts Over Fear. Shoutout to Sia for her amazing vocals, by the way. Also, Eminem is without a doubt among the top 3 rappers of all time, regardless of whatever metrics you use (I’m looking at you, Oghenekaro.)

While we’re on the topic, let me share with you uninitiated folk my list of the top 5 best MCs of all time. This list is not up for debate, meaning it’s indubitable. It’s not subject to any form of scrutiny, meaning it’s indisputable. And it certainly isn’t subjective, meaning it is, to all intents and purposes, a scientific fact.

Here’s my list, from sixth to first:

J. Cole

Nas

Kendrick Lamar

Eminem

Jay-Z

The Notorious B.I.G.

No, Pac’s omission is not an oversight; his abilities are a little overrated (this is a fact.) If you’re wondering, I did a top six instead of the usual top 5 because J. Cole had to be mentioned, and I didn’t do a top ten because you sapiens don’t pay me to write this shit.

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Anyway, I’m now on my sixth Guts Over Fear listen and I haven’t let FEAR play yet. But we’re not here to discuss music per se, we’re here to discuss The Life and Times of Juniper Lee Ehigbai Anderson Temidayo Ohiwerei (PBUH).

I’ve been going through serious quarter (mid, maybe?) life crises in the last month or so. These crises have been a potpourri of existential dread, a fear of the future, regrets from the past, and an inundation by worries of the present. My concerns transcend space and time because I’ve not even hit puberty yet and future me is already worried about his kids’ school fees.

FEAR is now playing and the significance of that song will become clear towards the end of this newsletter.

It probably makes no sense to you, dear reader of above-average intelligence, but in my retarded (pardon my ableism) mind, it makes perfect sense. In this short essay (which may also double as a suicide note, who knows?), I will⏤excuse my AI⏤delve into why I’m so worried and why this worry may be valid.

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I wouldn’t want to bore you with my life’s story, neither would I want to air my family’s dirty laundry here, so I’ll 🎶 really really try to keep it PG 🎶. So let’s take a moment to go into some Family Matters. It’s time to…

Meet the Grahams Ohiwereis

To give you a bit of background to my fears, I worry I may end up like my father. A promising young man who gains financial independence relatively early, but makes a string of bad decisions, goes broke, lives his 30s and 40s struggling financially, and maybe makes a comeback in his 50s, idk, we’ll see.

Now everyone who knows me knows I don’t believe in superstitions. I don’t even believe in Santa Claus. But, I also don’t know what I don’t know, and I’m never afraid to admit that there may be things beyond our human comprehension and beyond the grasp of scientific enquiry. I may not believe in those things, but I do not confidently proclaim their inexistence.

I say this to make clear that while I do not believe in generational curses or patterns or other such codswallop, maybe, just maybe they do exist.

We’ve all read stories of gross unlikelihoods happening multiple times. Like the story of Walter Summeford, the man who was allegedly struck by lightning three times during his life, and once in death.

Whether or not this story is true, I think we can all agree that there are people out there with an astonishing amount of bad luck just hanging on their backs like the number on a jersey. Just look at Harry Kane, for instance!

And even if you say it’s just a coincidence and bad luck doesn’t actually exist, you will at least agree with me that some people are genetically predisposed to certain behaviours. These behaviours may cause them to consistently make certain decisions that determine the course of their lives.

For example, if you are born to highly conscientious parents, there is a very good chance you end up being a highly conscientious person yourself, even if you don’t grow up with your parents.

So, in my case, even though I didn’t grow up with my father, I cannot deny that I exhibit certain traits that are characteristic of him. These traits will determine the kinds of decisions I make and possibly chart the course of my life. I won’t go into detail on what those traits are, but I know them, I recognise them, and they bother me sometimes.

Now if my theory of predisposition is correct and I may be predisposed to certain idiosyncracies simply by virtue of my genealogy, I’m sure you see why I’m a bit concerned.

A son doesn’t choose his father, but he does choose his favourite rapper

I’ve been a fan of the BET Awards for years. I remember how my mum and I always made sure we never missed watching it on TV, no matter what.

I was in my Jesus era in 2013 so I was mindful of the kinds of music I consumed. So even though I loved watching the BET Awards, I didn’t actively listen to most of the artists that were getting awarded.

But on this day in 2013, as I lay on the two-seater couch by the east wing window of our small two-bedroom palace at the time, watching the BET Awards, I encountered a young artist who kept getting awarded. His name was Kendrick Lamar and he won at least three awards that night.

As I said, I was in my Jesus era, so even though I liked what I heard as they played his song (turns out it was Swimming Pools) every time he won an award, I didn’t pay too much attention. That was until he won his final award, and in his acceptance speech, he began by saying, “Glory to God… Y’all believe in God, don’t you?”

In that moment, I knew I had found my guy. A young rapper who still believed in God, wasn’t afraid to proclaim the supremacy of Yahweh in front of the whole world, meaning he clearly wasn’t in the Illuminati? I was up like mad.

To cut the long story short, it was an instant match. I swiped right on Kendrick and have been a fan ever since.

But this is not a fanboy moment so I’ll cut to the chase.

In 2017, Kendrick released his Pulitzer-winning album, DAMN, a fourteen-track masterpiece replete with some of the best storytelling rap songs ever made. One of those songs is FEAR.

I would have loved to go into detail on why I think this song is brilliant and why I see myself in every lyric, but this shit is getting longer than the stream of Drake fanboy tears poured out over the last couple of weeks, so I’ll just skip to the third verse.

Here are my favourite lines from that verse:

When I was 27, I grew accustomed to more fear
Accumulated 10 times over throughout the years
My newfound life made all of me magnified
How many accolades do I need to block denial?
The shock value of my success put bolts in me
All this money, is God playin' a joke on me?
Is it for the moment, and will he see me as Job?
Take it from me and leave me worse than I was before?
At 27, my biggest fear was losin' it all
Scared to spend money, had me sleepin' from hall to hall
Scared to go back to Section 8 with my mama stressin'
30 shows a month and I still won't buy me no Lexus

Financially, this year has been my best yet. But like Kendrick at the peak of his success, I’m still scared. I find it ironic that I never had these fears when I was earning just enough to get by, but only feel this way when I have more than enough.

If you listen carefully to that song, you’ll notice a sort of evolution in Kendrick’s fears from age 7 to age 17 to age 27. I can relate to that evolution. From being scared of my mum as a child to this harrowing fear in my late teens that I was gonna die in a few years, this song forcibly puts a six-foot-three mirror in front of me.

I turn 27 in almost exactly six months, and my biggest fear right now I losing it all. I want to buy two new smartphones, a 40mm Tissot Gentleman Powermatic 80 Open Heart, a car, new Airpods, travel⏤all of which I can afford to do but am too afraid to.

Because heaven forbid shit hits the fan and I am plunged into financial turmoil like my father was. Heaven forbid my business goes bankrupt and I’m forced to lay everyone off and cease operations. Then AI gets even more powerful and writers are made completely obsolete so I can’t earn again from the only thing I know how to do. So now I’m left with a useless second-class lower degree in Psychology, am now too old to get an entry-level role yet lack the requisite corporate experience to get a mid-level role at any proper organization, can’t afford to get an MBA, have no economically viable skills, can no longer afford to take care of my mother like I used to, can’t pull any bad bitches, too ashamed of my failure so I hide from all my friends, too afraid to even go online because my numerous hates on Twitter will relish my downfall, have to move back to the trenches because I can no longer keep up with the rent and service charge in Lekki. So now I have to go back to the school where I got my primary education to ask my relatives who own the school if they can give me a job there while I work on getting back on my feet. I probably never do get back on my feet so now my son has to deal with the embarrassment of being sent out of class because I wasn’t able to pay his school fees, get to the university and have days when he can’t afford to eat a proper meal. After all, I have no money to send to him, so he has to choose between school and survival (he chooses survival). Now he’s working instead of studying so he can take care of himself and his mother (I couldn’t live with my own failure so I became a deadbeat dad). When he has rough days, he curses me for my poor life choices that have pushed him to have to shoulder significant financial responsibilities when he should have been getting the most out of the public tertiary education he’s forced to get because I can’t afford private school fees. And if my theory of predisposition is anything to go by, he’s probably an enterprising young man who thinks he has a bright future ahead of him but has no idea that he too is part of a never-ending vicious cycle of god-awful decision-making because the lottery of birth fucks with us all.

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It’s 4:28 AM and my Airpods died about fifteen minutes ago. I should go to bed now.