(Part 1/3) Pleasing my dad was very difficult while growing up. A lot of people used to call him Lieutenant, General, Deacon, Elder Baba Subomi, but he was never in the army. He was just hard.

It was so difficult to get on my dad’s good side, coupled with the fact that I was one of the most stubborn kids in the house. Although there was love in my family, I didn’t feel loved. I began to look for love in the wrong places. I left primary school safe enough, but I attended secondary school far from the watchful eyes of my parents. I started exploring – girls, relationships and porn. I got sucked in and went overboard. It was just by the mercies of God that I was not consumed.

I kept to myself a lot. I loved my space, I was always locked up in my room, listening to the radio, watching TV and reading books. I started desiring a way to to express my feelings. I remember when my older sister sat me down and asked if I was depressed. She had noticed I was always by myself and it was like I was rebelling against something. I told her that I felt nobody understood me and I didn’t have a voice in the house. I always worked hard to please my dad but he hardly showed that he noticed, not to talk less of acknowledging my effort. Nothing pleased him. Instead he demanded more. She told me that they all loved me but may not just be speaking my love language. I shouldn’t take it personal but should try to place myself in their shoes and think as a parent. By that time, many things had transpired. If my parents had known what I had been up to, they would probably have disowned me.

(Part 2/3) So here I was. I had a lot to say and I didn’t know how to say it. At first, I kept a journal. I sometimes still go through those books now and I’m shaken, like, “Okay, where were you getting your inspiration from. What were you thinking of at that point in time?”

Once I started a journal, I think it just naturally metamorphosed into music. I never considered starting music as a secular artist. I was raised in a Christian home and always had a kingdom mindset. I always felt that there were issues that needed to be addressed. I realise now that I went through all those things because of today’s youths.

Trust me, compared to then, being a youth wasn’t half as bad as it is now, even when I was feeling like a ‘badoo’. I look at what is going on now and it scares me. I believe God was preparing me to be able to understand what it is young people are going through and to reach out to them from a real and understanding point of view. When you go through a challenge and come out better, you know how to assist anyone going through the same issues, in love.

So yes, I started writing and it got me thinking; it got me digging. I started checking the word of God. By this time, I had given my life to Christ possibly a million times *laughs*. But I started finding God for myself, locked up in my room. There was a hunger to encounter God in a different way and I wanted God to really show himself to me; not the things I had heard. I wanted a one-on-one encounter with God and he started showing up.

My older sister who spoke with me never gave up. She was always on my case, always checking up on me, eager to answer any questions I had. I got deeper into God and I started seeing that the sounds, the tunes, the spirit, the truth and the lyrics that we put into music are the things that affect the mindset of every young person.

(Part 3/3) Everyone is looking for what excites them, what inspires them. They go out looking for books, music, and movies. It is the indecent ideas and wrong content put into these things that begin to shift people’s focus from who they truly are to who society defines them to be. I found out that true identity needed to be addressed. True identity from God’s point of view.

Although today I’ve picked up a camera (I’m now into photography), God keeps telling me that the strength in my voice is in music and I must not leave that because it’s very key to what he has called me for. Until that is established, I’m not to let go.

I started writing songs from one dark room in my house out of loneliness and lack of understanding of what love truly was. But, my heavenly Father who I don’t have to please, who loves me regardless of who I am or what I have done has taught me love through the pages of his word and through his son, Jesus.

For anybody out there who has a dad like mine, I want to tell you first of all that everything your parents are doing, or have done is out of love. That is just the best way they know to express their love. You can work on that and be a better version of your parents. Also, look to God. He is the best example of how to be a father.