Nneka has the kind of Heartbeat that some of us don’t have. Her words are genuine. Her lyrics are politically charged and when you listen to her speak, she goes ballistic spiritual. She believes so much in God. Her upbringing made her so. She is genuinely working towards spreading love across the world, mostly through her NGO, ROPE Foundation, through which she offers vocational training and practical education to young women across Africa – from Nigeria to Liberia to Sierra Leone – most of these young women had been sexually abused, beaten up and were constantly tormented.
She looks out for them to give them ‘hope.’ She has also awarded scholarships to some. All these things with the numerous tours, gigs, interviews and concerts happening all over the world. Her musical career is booming too. Just like wildfire.
We are talking in a Starbucks cafe near her home in Paris.
She is on the phone when I walk in and I join the queue to order for a cup of coffee, allowing her finish her phone call. She turns and looks at me; the look, a very strange one that says: “Stop!” I don’t realise what the look says until I finish ordering and she’s stopped her call and I walk to her and say, “Sorry for being late, sis.” She ignores that and says, “I was waiting for you na so we can order together.” Guilt pulses all through me for so many reasons. One, our appointment is 1.30pm and I come late. Two, she is seated there for thirty minutes or more and I come in and selfishly go to get my order, without waiting for her. She is really angry, I can sense it, so I apologise to her profusely. She says, “No wahala. I’m sorry I transferred the aggression on you. I was having a bad time on the phone.”
It is surreal, because the Nneka most people know is the highly celebrated superstar who doesn’t smile at people, who isn’t accommodating, the one that is very hostile and completely distant. “I don’t know why people think of me like that. It’s surprising,” she says, amused. She is an absolute hardworker; she speaks French, German, Pidgin English and Igbo – all these languages have some kind of musicality. It is only Pidgin English that she uses the more in her songs. During her concert at La Cigale in Paris in November, she had shouted to the packed hall: “How una dey?” Myself and another Nigerian brother responded, “We dey!” Her French audience didn’t know what she was talking about, hence, the silence, but they cheered later when she translated what she meant. After the concert, while the whole of Paris gathered infront of the venue, waiting for her to appear, for autographs, Nneka left through the back door of the building. Fans had travelled from all corners of Europe (three girls had come from Spain) and another obsessed fan from the south of France. They all waited patiently. I waited too. I hadn’t seen her in a long time. But Nneka had gone home, because she was tired.
“Sometimes, I just have to protect myself,” she says. She has a package, a copy of her CD (the cover of which she designed by herself) and a traditional Indian clothing, which she is going to give to her Chinese friend, Liao Yingzi, a beautiful painter who later gives her a painting of her beautiful face and afro and she continues to admire it throughout the metro train journey we had, going through the museum where the Mexican painter, Kahlo’s paintings were being exhibited. Of all, Nneka, unlike many celebrities, is not obsessed with fame or her status as a role model or the envy of fellow musical scribes. She never says things most celebrities say, like, “I’m humble and down-to-earth.”
“I prepared very delicious egusi soup yesterday,” she tells me when I tell her I want to eat Nigerian food later in the evening. “You should come and eat in my house.”
Immediately, my mind travels to Kampala where a die-hard fan of Nneka, Brian Bwesigye, lives. He loves Nneka to bits and has never met her. He has walked the streets of Hamburg in Germany, hoping he’d run into her. That dream never came true. His lover even knows her lover loves Nneka that much. Brian is one of the thousands living in different parts of the world. This year, the moment I arrived Entebbe airport in Uganda, for Writivism Festival, organised by Brian, I was greeted with the whole Nneka story by Briana and his lover. “Brian is heartbroken. Someone told him Nneka is a snob,” Brian’s lover tells me. And I tell Brian the person must have tried stalking Nneka in his dreams. From one country to another, she is loved for her kind of music and how she presents herself to the world. My cousin, another, Brian, Brian Nwelue, a professional basketball player in America likes to say, “Ah, Nneka, my wife!” Everyone exists in their own delusions for Nneka, whether for her hair, her face, her voice, her art, her film, her music or her spiritual talk.
That evening, after our meeting at Starbucks, myself, Nneka and Liao walked through the streets of Paris, through Champs Elysees Avenue, where I got the perfume she suggested was good for me and we took a picture which I posted on Facebook, it was Brian from Uganda that commented first. He felt I was humiliating him with those pictures and called me an enemy. So, when Nneka wanted me to come and eat in her house, I knew if Brian heard this, told to him, he might faint. Obsessed fans do that. His love, for Nneka, is because of her art. He has loads of quotes by Nneka sprinkled on his Facebook.
“I need to give back to Warri, my society, my country,” she says, when we talk about her humanitarian contributions. She has plans to award more scholarships, take a medical team to visit places in Warri and also train women in areas they can benefit from. She visits orphanage homes in Lagos and goes to the market for them whenever she is in Nigeria. She finds it hard to compromise with politicians, too. These things I got to know by following and observing her. She didn’t have to tell me.
On the 20th of December, with Ade Bantu, Aduke and others, Nneka gave us a taste of what she gives to the world at Freedom Park, Lagos, Nigeria and everyone appreciated her too!
Visit: Grab The Rope
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Onyeka Nwelue who is a founding member of The Trent Voices lives in Paris, where he runs La Cave Musik, a record label, specialising in quality music from Africa and the Caribbean.
