About that #LooseTalkPodcast

So, online media has had a field day analysing MI’s recent appearance on Osagie Alonge’s podcast series. To be honest, I avoided it; I kept on telling myself I would stay away from it, and I was successful, up till today.

A colleague played the #LooseTalkPodcast in the office this afternoon, I listened, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on the bits I listened to. Tweeted a bit, even made a Facebook post on it, but the matter didn’t leave me so I thought I’d provide some more context here.

For starters, here’s the video. Make sure you have approximately three hours to set on fire, and note that it’s not suitable for work because of all the cursing.

Again, I’m not a ‘hip-hop head’; this is to preempt the ones whose only basis for disagreement with this will be “you do not understand hip hop, you’re not a hip-hop head. I agree in advance.

Fact: Osagie Alonge was rude; there are no ifs, ands, or buts about that. Also fact: MI’s calmness is #goals. Either that or he has a liking for masochism. If my memory serves Osagie has taken quite a few swipes at him in the past, almost, as it were, building (or attempting to build) notoriety off ‘critiquing’ Jude.

I thought I would take a few minutes to look up the word ‘critique’, because Osagie went on and on about people saying he was negative when he was only ‘critiquing’ their work. Here goes.

Critique – to evaluate (a theory or practice) in a detailed and analytical way. It refers more to literary, theoretical or philosophical bodies of work, but stretches to other forms of artistic expression. It is from the Greek word kritikē, from kritikos meaning ‘able to discern.’

Where was the analysis? Where was the careful, structured presentation of fact backing the many wild allegations he made? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Even law has it that “he who alleges/asserts must prove.” At some point he was yelling, “we have the receipts, we have the facts.” Where were they? The reference to his colleague as his data back up?

Yet, there was no desire to brook any facts countering his opinions. MI came back with a few statistics on album ranking, money he’s made off the album in question, etc., Osagie disputed them, citing the difference in demographics. So let’s get this straight – you make a claim (without facts), it is countered with facts, you reject the counter (without facts), but somehow we’re all supposed to take your opinion as law?

Speaking of opinions, Isaac Asimov said, “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” Emphasis on ‘your’ – no one is under any obligation to agree with you, even if you’re their fan.

I do not know that I would ever be able to sit through that amount of swearing & disrespect in the name of critique or fandom. I know quite a few Nigerian artistes who would have walked out, who might have even thrown a few punches.

Call me old-fashioned, but there are still standards for public-facing conversations, even private ones. Some might say interviews for podcasts cannot be viewed through the lens of textbook journalism, but do you want to be taken seriously or not? Hiding behind ‘my opinion’ or ‘I said what I said’ or ‘I can say this because I’m a long time fan’ to put down your guest is unprofessional. It was worse because both guest and the lead interviewer kept referring to being friends. Friendship? Who needs enemies?

It’s not even about my respect for Jude Abaga (which has quadrupled since listening to this); it’s about the decency of engagement that was missing. Talking over the guest, interrupting him the entire time, downright rubbishing his work, this was painful to watch/listen to.

In my short time facilitating learning around strategic communication and advocacy I always warn against inadvertently drowning out the message because of the language, the messenger, or even the design. In engineering it’s referred to as the signal-to-noise ratio; where the background noise adversely affects the strength and utility of an electrical signal. This was quite messy, overflowing with emotion, and lacking the coherence to justify doing it in the first place.

Finally, I probably won’t ever endure listen to #LooseTalkPodcast again; I cringed for all of the 90 minutes I got through. I probably don’t like music this much, or maybe my expectations for 2 hours 47 minutes are just too high.

We’re here! The land of a thousand hills! (Part 2)

Welcome back! Part one is here, and ended with me falling asleep, despite my best intentions to watch Minions!

Addis Ababa.

We disembarked, and I met up with Fatu and Shamsudeen who were going on to Kigali, and Japheth and Rotimi who would spend the night and meet us the next morning.

And then the struggle for WIFI began. I’d flown through Addis at least three times this year, and I knew the airport didn’t have WIFI. But, my companions said to ask one of the Customer Care agents and she pointed us to one connection that didn’t work. So we went to a café and they said if we bought stuff worth $30 ($10 each), they would let us connect one device each. Didn’t make sense either, so we walked around for a bit, and then it was time to get on our connecting flight.

Oh, before I forget, while we were waiting in the departure area, there was this guy playing music really loudly from his phone. Like, with every song, the music became louder. So, I brought out my Bose mini speakers, covered it with my poncho, connected it to my phone, and started playing Nigerian music. Turn up! Didn’t take long before the guy turned off his music. (I’m sorry!)

We boarded, took off and for some reason I was really hungry. Ate, went back to sleep (again movies were useless), and then interestingly I dreamt about the movie Raid on Entebbe. When I woke up, even more interestingly we’d landed at Entebbe to drop off some guys and pick some others. I told Shamsudeen we were in Uganda; he said we were in Kigali. I looked at the time and said we were more than an hour early to have landed in Kigali, but somehow he convinced Fatu and they both got off the plane.

Hian. I thought about it again, got out of my seat, and went to the door of the aircraft. I asked one of the hostesses and she confirmed we were indeed at Entebbe, and then I saw my friends standing there (by this time they’d found out they were in the wrong country), smiling (shaking my head).

Anyway, so we got back in our seats, and it was back to sleep for the hour-long flight to Kigali. We touched down at 2am.

Hello WIFI! Like, it was a bit like Frankfurt airport, where you’re spoiled for choice with WIFI. Apparently, there were a lot of us who’d come in, and after we finished with immigration, sorted our visas we got into buses and headed for our hotels. Mine, the beautiful Lemigo!

My room was reminiscent of the old bedchambers I’d seen in movies, so quaint, so warm, so beautiful. Want to see?

Fit for my royal majesty!

What a beauty! When I make up my own house I must have a bed like this…

By the way, there was a beautiful Bible on the bedside stool, and two packs of condoms in the drawer beneath it. Lol. I stayed awake long enough to take in the beauty of the room, and then it was lights out. Literally.

By the time I woke up, it was already time to head to the first of the sessions; rushed a bath, grabbed a bite (their food is gorgeous), and off to the meeting halls we went. God being super merciful, we were lodged in the same hotel the event was holding. Good stuff!

Potatoes, the sexiest sausages I’ve had in a while, and eggs. A bit of a tale with the eggs, communication, and language. I asked for egg whites with peppers only, even pointed them out to the chef. I got eggs with bacon. #StillGrateful #INeedToBrushUpMyFrench

I thoroughly enjoyed the panels, listening to election issues and hindrances to youth and female participation across Africa. Interestingly, the problems are the same – high cost of participation, election funding, tokenism, lack of intergenerational trust and knowledge sharing, partial election umpires, patriarchy, I could go on and on. In that regard, can’t we say that Africa is a country? Up for discussion.

Then it was lunch time and after we said hello to a bunch of people (ticked off the ‘networking box’) we made our plates, and joined a table where one lady was spitting half her food out as she spoke. I was happy to leave the table. Urgh.

We got back into the sessions and Nana who was supposed to be up the next morning had been moved to that afternoon. Boy did she bring it! She spoke as a young female actively involved with a political party, and I was so proud. So very proud of the knowledge she brought to the panel, the confidence of her delivery, and the passion as she expressed truth after truth. So proud!

That night, we decided to go to the hotel gym. Brethren in Christ, it was an intense workout! According to my Polar, I burnt about 750kcal; very productive.

Dinner was a drag. I rang room service, ordered chicken and chips, and they said it’d be ready by the time we got downstairs. We got downstairs and it wasn’t ready so we waited. 30 minutes after we sent the first person to the chef, nothing. He didn’t even come back. I was irritated by this time cos I was hungry and the language barrier made communication a bit more difficult. Nana sent the second person to the chef but it seems the thing that swallowed the first guy swallowed this one too!

Of course we left. Ended up in a lounge called People’s and the music was off the chain! From Nigerian songs to the 90’s, to chart toppers, the video DJ (like audio wasn’t enough) dropped hit after hit, after hit! Turn up! Oh we had an amazing time, and I had two bottles of water instead of ordering food because I was distracted by the really great music, and it was really late anyway.

Got back to the hotel about 3am and the receptionist said my food was ready. Shaking my head! I just went to bed. Good night jor!