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| Emem |
For the three beautiful girls who met in 1996 at the University of Lagos, music was not originally on the list of their priorities as each became an undergraduate for different reasons. Toyin Shokefun’s dream was to become an Economist while Lara Bajomo hoped to study Architecture to enable her design a mansion of her own.
In her own dream, Emem Ema who hails from Akwa Ibom state planned to study Law. But all these lofty dreams disappeared in 1996 when the trio met as choristers in the Rock Solid Group. They soon teamed up to form KUSH, the high rising musical group which made waves in the entertainment scene.
Ema (popularly called MM) does the rap in KUSH whileToyin Shokefun is into alto and jazz singing. Lara Bajomo, the architect, is the soprano singer. The young singers in a recent encounter explained their musical career to Daily Sun:
The journey so far
Besides God, our parents too have been very supportive. What was fundamental on their minds was for us to get good and qualitative education to a reasonable (graduate) level. We have been able to achieve that. Right now, we get all the support and encouragement that we need. The group started when we were undergraduates at the University of Lagos. We started out as members of the same choir, The
Rock Solid.
Our relationship started on a good note and we’ve been together since then. We never for once imagined that seven years after, we would still be together as a group. It wasn’t something we planned at the beginning but our belief is that since we actually started out doing it for God and making people happy, that’s why God has brought us this far.
Album
Our debut is titled Experience. It was produced in London, Minnneapolis and Los Angeles. We only produced a demo in Nigeria as a ground work which was taken abroad for refinement. The album was made possible by God. We did work hard, and others, like our manager, our record company and our family, supported us.
We’ve been highly blessed and honoured with the response and we are very grateful to our teeming fans. The response is even much more than what we expected.
Hit track
It’s titled Let’s live Together, we tried as much as possible to mirror our society, Nigeria. We decided to inculcate our different languages into our songs. But on a serious note, we don’t actually speak the languages we used in our song. For instance, Lara doesn’t speak Igbo and MM isn’t Hausa but we just tried to express ourselves through the languages. The major thing is that we are all Nigerians.
On the message of the track, our plan was to produce a relevant song to the situation in our country. We thought of an appropriate song that would unite the people of Nigeria at that time that elections were approaching. So we decided to inject it into our maiden album. The track comments on our political situation as most Nigerians were unsure of how the elections would go, and whether we would be able to get it right or not.
Happiest moments
Lara: The process has been a very interesting one. Personally, the happiest moment came when I first saw the CD pack and I tore it open, slot it into a disc player and listened to it. I felt so happy because it was one of the highest points of the whole exercise. For me, from the beginning till now, I’ve been a happy person.
Type of music
Essentially, our music is influenced by our faith, our belief and since we have different persons who contribute to the music, we have always enjoyed working together. But the basic thing is the message we pass across. Our music is hip-hop, R&B, Jazz or even Afrobeat. Our music is a complete fusion of love.
Male member of the group
His name is Dapo and he has been quite busy. He’s been abroad and it has not been convenient for him to join us. But he has always been part of our overseas tours. We started out with Nigeria and moved on to other parts of Africa. We also moved to the United Kingdom.
Achievement
We would not say we have achieved what we set out as our goals, but we would rather say we are on our way to achieving those targets.
Costumes
We try as much as possible to express our different personalities through our mode of dressing. Our accessories are done by Vetroso, a friend of the group. We try as much as possible to keep it nice and simple.
Bad moments
We have had no regrets whatsoever since we decided to come together as a group. We are indeed very grateful to God that things are moving the way we anticipated. We have heard horrible stories from other people but in our case, things are going on as planned and we thank God for everything.
Shows abroad
In 2002, we were at the Festival of Life, an equivalent of Holy Ghost Festival in Nigeria. In 2003, we had a couple of shows abroad. We did one at Methodist Church, London. In 2001, we were at the Nigerian Reunion in New Jersey, USA and also at the United Kingdom. We have also done a number of church performances in London.
Influence of Christianity
Although we are Christians, we make sure our music does not centre on any geographical or religious affiliation. All we do is to cut across religious barriers. Our main dream is to reach out to different kinds of people, home and abroad. For us, we are very glad it’s beginning to happen.
Problems
Our problems may come as our weaknesses as human beings. As human beings, we all have weaknesses that we live with-either on individual basis or collectively as a group (KUSH). At the end of the day, God is our strength and He supplies all that we all need according to His riches in glory.
Childhood
Ema: I loved spending time with my family, my mum, dad and other siblings. I was also attending church services with my parents and buying ice creams and even going to the beach together.
Toyin: My Saturdays used to be exceptionally blissful for me then, and my Sundays too especially when we go to church together as a family.
Lara: When I was much younger, we played games together as children then and our parents were always around to watch us play. To me, those were my fondest memories.
Popularity
We are grateful to God for everything. We really have been honoured by the response we’ve been getting so far. If the question has to do with the effect our fame is having on our persons or pysche, we would just say that we remain as simple as we have ever been.
We concentrate more on our job as a team that make up KUSH. With our dreams and aspiration still our mainstay, we only get to hear so much of our acceptance from our manager who really gets to feel the pulse from the people outside our musical circle.
Love as a universal message
Our Lard Christ Jesus died on the cross for mankind, showing his unconditional love. Love should be more of giving than getting from someone because when you’re constantly piling pressure on someone to give to you, it just puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on that relationship.
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