Poverty killed my dream of becoming an Engineer - African China

After about one-year hiatus, one of Nigeria's foremost reggae stars, African China, has returned with two new singles entitled “Boko Haram” and “Gen Gen,” which, apart from currently burning the airwaves across the nation, are also being celebrated on various social media platforms. 
In this encounter, the multiple award winning artiste averred that plans are already in motion to shoot videos of the new singles. “I’m here again to make a statement with my kind of songs. I’ve done it before; I’ve done it again and I will keep doing it.” Enjoy the interview.


Tell us about your two new singles
I just dropped two new singles entitled “Boko Haram” and “Gen Gen.” I composed “Boko Haram” in my usual way to address the sect’s restlessness and possibly draw attention of the government on the need to curb the ugly situation. I’m saddened that some groups of people are constantly maiming our Christian brothers with impunity. Why should we continue to fold our hands and watch thousands of Nigerians, especially from the eastern part of the nation being lynched and sent to their untimely deaths? The government needs to rise to this challenge. So in my usual way of creating awareness on salient and critical issues, the new song-“Boko Haram” addresses the Boko Haram menace while “Gen Gen” is a club banger.  I’m here again to make a statement with my kind of songs. I’ve done it before; I’ve done it again and I will keep doing it.
You’ve been silent for sometimes; was it deliberate?
I’ve always been doing my things underground. I’ve been busy with lots of things while trying to come out with “Boko Haram” and “Gen Gen.” Apart from that, I also needed to give sometimes to my family-you know I’m now a married man with kids.
Tell us about your wife
I met her at an event in Lagos. We met and we hit it off. I wanted to do the normal hit-and-run stuff. But I found out that she was different. I dated her for six years and we got married in the 7th year. Before we got married, we were intimate, so there was no reason to look elsewhere for attention. She was not the first girl to steal my heart, she was the second-the first was a secondary school girl, while we were still in school. My wife is from Nassarawa State, a Christian, and she speaks Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa. She grew up in Lagos, at Cement along Lagos-Abeokuta expressway. She is the best, and till today, she has kept making me a happy man.
How did you come about your name African China?
Normally in primary school, the class teacher takes a roll call. My name, when pronounced correctly should be Cheena-go-rum, but our teacher then used to pronounce it as China-go-rum, which was very annoying. And whenever I stood up to acknowledge that I was present, I had anger on my face. She would provoke me further by saying: “he even resembles people from China”. Before long, anyone that wanted to upset me in the class would simply call me China. Sometimes I fought them. But one day, my father joined them to start calling me China, then my brothers too joined. Before I knew it, the whole street was calling me China.
What was your life like as a ghetto boy?
As an average ghetto boy, I got in to fights. When I was young, I was a weakling but by the time I got to secondary school, I had become a toughie, in my neighbourhood and at school, I was always at the forefront of any major fight. I drank alcohol and I hustled, but I did not do Marijuana. I never did marijuana, I never even smoked cigarette. But alcohol, my brother, I drink o. I was 15 when I started drinking Ogogoro, Shekpe, but Hennessey, where I wan see the money buy am? Ogogoro was cheap. One shot was N5 then; I wasn’t drinking it because it was cheap, but because Shekpe is medicinal, that was how it all started. Whenever I was feeling pain or not feeling too well, I would go and buy herbal mixture, the one mixed with Ogogoro, also called Shekpe. I still take Shekpe. That thing is medicinal! When you drink correct Shekpe, you feel it working deep in you.
Give us some insights about your family
I lost my mother when I was two years old. I don’t have any mental recollection of her except what I saw of her in photos. I cannot really place her face. It hurts me. Back in those days when we were kids, playing with my peers, whenever we had a fight, I’d hear them say “I will go and tell my mother” then I would start to cry even if I were the one that beat them. It didn’t feel right to reply that “I will go and tell my papa.” So I would just cry. We are a family of seven (three females and four males) plus a half brother and a half sister from my step mother. That makes nine children in the family. I am the last born of my mother. My step mum came in after my mother’s death. Living with my first step mum was terrible – beating, slavery- was my lot. I was stubborn though. As the last baby, I needed some pampering and she was not ready to give that. She did not really give birth to any child so she left. It was the second wife that
gave birth to the two half-siblings. She was a lovely woman, the second step mother. I didn’t see her like a mother though. She was much younger. She made the difference. But she also left, leaving behind her children with my father. The fault is not my fathers’: the second wife could not bear children for my father; the third was much younger, younger men were after her wanting to marry her. Without a mother figure, I was brought up by my sisters.
Tell us more your poverty story
I grew up in poverty. When I look back I feel sick. I don’t like poverty. While growing up I was hawking for my second step mum in Orile: groundnuts, oranges, mangoes. Many times I was penniless. So many times. I was once a DJ. I did everything to survive. I wanted to be an engineer, that was my first dream but that dream died, killed by poverty.  When I was growing and I discovered I have some strength, I went about looking for trouble. For instance, boys who came to our street looking for girls were always the target of our provocation, me and my friends. Then Ajegunle was notorious, and some of the boys on my street joined street gangs. I did not join any, but I was collecting tolls from buses. I was using the money to eat and to buy bathroom slippers. My best dress was white-blue stripes slippers, jeans and short sleeve shirt or T-shirt. Our soup na soso water and oil.  Soups are not supposed to last beyond three days. But our own, we pour water
into it so that e go last for one week or more. Any soup at all – Oha, Ogbono, or Okra, especially Okra, my father liked Okra because e go last for long. Despite living in poverty, I never stole.
But I was stubborn and I fought a lot. Many times Police came to our doorstep to arrest me, especially when I stabbed people with broken bottle at home and at school. I once stabbed somebody in a fight at school and he was hospitalized.  Then if anyone abused my mother, I would lose my cool. My mother meant so much to me. Now, I have changed - my thinking, my ways, the fight mentality, misconduct, uncouth talking, my brusque approach to people. Now I respect people. I am refined. I never thought I could become somebody in life. Then, I was just growing with the tide of life. When I see people with good things of life then - flashy cars, beautiful women - I was filled with longings.
Can you recap your prison experience in London?
I spent two weeks behind bars in Belmash Prison, London. While in the prison, I saw people of all races - Arab, Chinese, Latino, African. There, you must belong to a clique. I hooked up with the Jamaicans. A Nigerian saw me and challenged me: “Are you not one Nigerian celebrity?”  I denied. I changed my tongue to Jamaican lingo. The guy persisted. “Say, this guy I am talking about calls himself African China”. I denied strongly but I coaxed him to tell me more and what he said about me was positive. Two weeks later when I was granted bail, (the bail was about 2, 000 pounds but not up to 5, 000 as was wrongly reported in newspapers) I went to that guy and said to him: “I am African China, for real.” He was a Yoruba guy, jailed for fraud. I made them all believed that I was from Jamaica.
What really took you to the prison?
The incident that took me to Belmash Prison happened after Basketmouth’s show in London. A white girl falsely accused me of raping her. She was a friend of a Nigerian girl called Precious, who I knew back in Nigeria before she migrated to London. Precious saw an advert about me in London and she called to ask me if it was true that I would be coming to the UK. She offered to come and pick me at the airport.  She introduced me to her friend and flat mate, a British blonde - that was why I could never do anything with her even though she was eager. The true story is this: We all went to a party. There, the white girl and Precious had a nasty fight. The British girl was worse off and she couldn’t go home. So I said ‘I will take you to my hotel room you will sleep there, by tomorrow morning things would have cooled down.” That was how we ended in my hotel room. She slept, woke up the next morning and went back to her flat. After she left, my friends
asked me if I slept with her. I told them I don’t discuss such things.
When the white girl got home, Precious accused her of sleeping with her boyfriend. The white girl denied it, but Precious insisted: “his friends said he told them so”. “If he had slept with me then I didn’t know,” the white girl replied. At that point she was confused. She assumed that I had had carnal knowledge of her while she was asleep. Consequently, she reported to the police. The cops showed up at my hotel door. Are you African China? They asked questions. Do you know this miss? Did she sleep in your room?  I answered yes to both. Then you are under arrest! I thought it was a joke until they put a pair of handcuff on my hands.
Later, it became a mix up. The British girl was demanding for money so she would reverse her statements. My so-called girlfriend too was urging me to give her money. It all began to look like a set up. That was when my girlfriend told me one of my friends informed her that I’d slept with her blonde friend. They were so bent on extorting the money out of me that it turned to cheap blackmail. I didn’t give in.
By JAMES EMMANUEL
jemedia7@gmail.com