I Was Born In Ajegunle!

No. 90 Ojo Road by ECN bus stop was the first address I knew as a toddler. That exposure was so much in one. My experience of “AJ city” was on the fringes. I couldn’t lay so much claim to “ghettoness” with a Mum who provided a shield within the walls of our home, so impenetrable that a better part of my childhood was founded on religious correctness. 

Daddy Showkey was the rave of my childhood. His “Galala” dance steps found its way through the walls of Mum’s moral gibraltar. I stepped it and rocked it while it aired on NTA Channel 5 and 10, and later AIT in 1996 when Jumobi anchored “Lunch Break”. 

Galala lasted almost a decade before “Konto” came on stream. Then came Marvelous Benji with his “Swoor” steps that toppled all that galala and konto had made put together. 

Whether you call it Galala, Konto or Swoor the dance steps were not for the soft footed. You require special energy to pull it off. 

Today, when I see Millenials rock the “Zanku” steps, it reminds me of the Marxian thesis on the “Law of Negation” – everything changes, but nothing changes completely. Galala remains the foundation of “all them dance steps”, even the ones yet to come. 

Forget Alanta or Alingo, those are mere scraps from the main substance. 

Showkey, we hail thee! 

– Mazi Ejimofor Opara writes from Awka, Anambra State.