Ezinne is a music freak. An avid lover of Gospel vibes. She sleeps and dreams music. Once the music sounds, she becomes ecstatic and may even start hallucinating. Whatever the genre – Classical, Jazz, Hip-pop, Afrobeats – provided it is Gospel, she is up for it! Growing up she had had lots of influences that made her love for music grow incrementally. Nurtured by a mother who was a Nollywood star and who like most of our movie goddesses had her second vocation as music, Ezinne was already copying her mother’s second choice as her life’s passion. And so, every occasion was designed for singing: in the showers, during break time at school, in the company of friends, in the company of herself, at the bus station, during laundry. Soon, iPods, radio, CDs, as well as contemporary music software of various brands became her constant companions.

Dealing with the demise of her lovely mother, sometime in 2014, was for Ezinne very devastating as the first daughter. She had looked up to her mother, and consequently bonded so well with her, that the shock became a lasting one. Narrating her experience to a friend in the year that followed, Ezinne revealed that music became for her a deliberate therapy for survival: ‘I needed to be strong for my siblings. Though I have an elder brother, but he is my only brother. My other siblings are girls, the three of them, so I knew that I had to stay strong for them. My only solace at that time was music, music and only music.’ With this crushing experience, Ezinne became more introverted. She learnt how to engage with her inner self, confronting the pain of loss and seeming loneliness.

However, two things were to impact her life positively in the subsequent years. First, it was her faith community. Ezinne is a member of the Bible Faith Ministries in Port-Harcourt. Though not originally born into that church, according to her, she made her choice because of the music and the preaching of the charismatic pastor of this church. As is expected, she found her niche in the church choir, where she ever looked forward to always bell out her soul in songs and praises. It consumes her and she feels alive whenever she’s up there on the podium doing what she loves and knows how to do. Music!

The second thing that happened to her was that she got into a serious friendship with a Methodist preacher. Pastor Richie is the name. Both of them had met sometime in 2003 and later got into contact once again when Richie heard of the demise of Ezinne’s mum in 2014. He had reached out to her in sincere condolence, but in due time, the communication between both developed into a robust friendship. It was a harmless friendship but one which has all the possibilities of exploding immeasurably. However, both Ezinne and Pastor Richie had to nurture a mature yet intimate relationship. One thing was at the center of their relationship. Music. Both had known themselves for quite a long time but never had reasons to open up beyond the normal ‘hello’ and ‘hi’ until they discovered the profound love which they have for music. Soon, they would be exchanging songs, music files and MP3s with each other. Soon, Ezinne would record her singing sessions and send to Richie. Soon, both would spend time singing popular tunes together, Ezinne to the soprano, Richie to the alto or bass, as the notes demand. Unfortunately, the relationship began to suffer since both see their different faith backgrounds as impossible to overcome. Recounting how it felt, Ezinne confessed that ‘It was like finding the rhythm of your soul in the other side of the divide.’ Given their strong involvement in their respective churches, they felt it better to loosen the grip they had on each other. ‘This is not really going to work,’ Ezinne confided in a friend. ‘I am pained, but I need to tell myself the truth. He remains my best friend but I need to disconnect,’ she says amid sobs.

It was really music that did the magic. It was music that showed both souls how close they were to each other. Music indeed has no color. It strikes at the chord of the soul. Hip-pop which was the creation of African-Americans has become the darling of everyone. Travis Green does not know the difference between when he is performing somewhere in Los Angeles and when he is vibrating down here in Lagos. Donnie McClurking would not mind bursting into the rhythms of ‘Oghene Doh’ and ‘Imela’. While the universality of music was capable of suspending the any human barrier between Ezinne and Richie, their church identities exerted a stronger force of restraint on both. Quite a pain! Some days ago, Ezinne had put up a picture of her and Richie, which they had taken when the later visited her last year, on her WhatsApp status. She gave it the inscription ‘My paddy for life!’. Richie had reacted: ‘I miss us, dear’, to which Ezinne responded: ‘Me too’.