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Mohbad: A Purpose Under The Sun |
About 2 weeks ago or more, the news got out that Mohbad had passed.
My first question was- Who is that?
A very valid one I might add because nothing about him seemed familiar to me.
Not the name, not the face, not the circumstances mentioned around him so I empathized with those concerned and took my eyes off it.
But every day after his death the noise got bigger and louder and before we could comprehend it, the Nigerian media space was flooded with ‘Mohbad’ such that the news touched you in your bedroom, workplace, place of worship etc.
Everywhere you were, it went too.
Social media was agog! Emotions and opinions casting a spell of despair and anger.
The clout chasers came in their full regalia, the commentators and gist mongers found relevance and the ‘monitoring spirits’ remained silent on public platforms but forwarded updates on private ones.
Enraged about what had happened to this young man, a mob formed.
The loudest cry in the air? Justice!
Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba was born 27 years ago. I’d have said he came from humble beginnings but the truth can be found in the word ‘ghetto’
Let me paint it in colour using Nigerian parlance ‘the child of a nobody’
Somehow, he journeyed into rapping, singing, songwriting and found his ‘Light’
His debut album was just released in 2020 and between 2021 and 2022 he was being nominated for awards and his songs peaking on charts.
But even though he had some really popular songs, it was a mystery that the question on many lips with the news of his passing was –
Who is Mohbad?
The answer is not far-fetched.
He was hidden in plain sight. Hindered, overlooked and consistently sabotaged.
This was largely because he was considered a commoner and in a ruthless industry like showbiz/entertainment it was easy to become prey
But that is not the object of my focus today.
The anchor of my observation is in this one fact.
He christened himself and was primarily known as ‘Imole’ translating to ‘Light’
I’d like to paraphrase in a few words what this entire occurrence brought my way.
How does this concern you?
I’ll share a few of my thoughts here;
Justice can be served confidentially.
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Our perception of others forms how we treat them.
If it were possible to see the uproar that would erupt on account of Mohbad’s death ahead of time, his persecutors and everyone identified as a troubler would not have made the decisions they did.
Nothing in his history could have prepared them for the past 2 weeks.
What does justice look like for those people?
The sudden confusion in their world, the fear in their eyes, the rumbling in their stomach, the thoughts in their alone time and the realization of who he really was.
We are each gifted but people are given to us
This one is multifaceted.
There are those who will relearn gratitude from this experience by realizing that they rode on the wings of giants to become who they are and that those giants could have chosen not to spread their wings.
There are those who think their gift is enough to carry them through and ignore or undermine the counsel of those gifted to them (recognizing them is a different thing entirely by the way)
They will open to humility
A purpose under the sun
This young man’s life played out just as it was intended from the foundations of the world.
The circumstances of birth were intentional.
He had to be born ‘in the ghetto, a child of nobody’ representing the voiceless.
He had to be underestimated, undermined, ignored, sabotaged. Oh, he had to be.
Even though he could not understand it in the flesh, his spirit knew of a greater purpose.
And so in the days of inspiration, he wrote words he did not fully understand and sang about being through ‘many things’, about being known and remembered more in death, about his persecutors being on the run because he had overcome them
He sang about being ‘Imole’ (Light)
His birth name ‘Ilerioluwa’ translates to ‘ The Promise of God’
He knew even though he didn’t know he did.
He was given to us for a time like this.
%Name%, life is lived in seasons.
Time, space, and age are only in the Earth kingdom and will cease for all in due season.
Like I always say- you do not find purpose; it finds you
It may not make sense all the time but you only need to discover your light per time and stay in it
Everything else will come to you.
P.S.: I love to read your thoughts on my letters so hit the reply button now, let’s talk.