And so on...

Now that I'm done with school until January, I must admit that I'm feeling quite bloggy...... So let's talk about how this Naija American Girl thing started.

It was about this time last year when I first started the title poem. Can't remember exactly how the idea came to me, so it must have came from God. :)

I started writing the poem and stored it away, bringing it out periodically to add to it. I do this with many poems that I write, sometimes spending months before finally finishing a poem.

However, one event sped up the whole process and forced me to finish the poem: my African group's cultural show. At my school every year our African student group puts on a show for the whole school. We were kind of short on acts, so I volunteered myself to do a poem, and I had the perfect one....I just had to finish it! Hahahah

So I finished the poem and performed it for the first time at the show in this year April. It went over really well. Thus, the Naija American Girl was born. Lol.

Looking back, I feel like 2008 was the year that I enrolled myself in "Naija Awareness 101". It's the year I really began to dive into popular Nigerian music on Youtube and found some stuff that I really fell in love with by people like Faze, P-Square, 2Face, the now broken-up Resonance, Eben, my favorite, Timaya, and the list just goes on.

My self-education was sparked by curiosity after watching hilarious remakes like "Crank dat Naija Boy" by two different groups. But I wanted to find out what the real music that people in Naija were moving to these days. Also, being ridiculed by a friend when I didn't know who P-Square was also prodded me to find out what I was missing. Hahaha. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't know good music when I heard it at a Nigerian party or wedding reception or anything; I just didn't know the names of the folks making it!

I also read books that really gave me a better understanding of Nigerian history, Igbo history to be specific. I learned the most from one book, "What Will my Mother Say?" by Dympna Ugwu-Oju. I would recommend it to any Igbo young lady.

I'm still discovering more, learning as I go. It's amazing how much Igbo I've learned from Youtube, asking my mom when I don't understand. Also recalling all the old praise songs we've sung since my childhood and analyzing them helps too. :) I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't know a lot. It's when you admit that you don't know everything that you can learn something.