Banky W’s Random Thoughts On Caffeine, Monkeys And Vegas

By Bankole Welhington

It might not be popular among Nigerian celebrities unlike their foreign counterparts who take to the very popular online diary most appropriately called a blog, but a few Nigerian acts do entertain us with their activities off the camera.

Nigerian R&B singer Banky W is one of the few who try to give his numerous fans a good read on his The Bank Statements blog. With 32 posts so far, the EME boss has done pretty well to entertain us – at times he’s political then again he switches to lighthearted subjects

His last post titled Random Thoughts: The Rebirth takes on a humorous path as he talks about his household, the occupants and their love for caffeine. A good read it is..enjoy…..

It seems like I start off every new blog with an apology now, because I just get so caught up being busy that these days, I rarely take the time to sit down and write full blogs. I blame twitter. Seriously, I’ve become addicted to tweeting instead of blogging… so instead of writing full articles/posts, I’ve become used to cramming my thoughts and expressions into 140 Characters or less. Somewhere in his office, my high school English teacher Mr. Oke is cringing in shame. Heheheh.

Anyway, I intend to blog a little more this second half of the 2011 year. I figure what better way to kick start this by bringing back the ‘Random Thoughts’ feature I used to do. These are all essentially little thoughts/topics I want to share, which may not be of any real significance to anyone, but you may find them entertaining. These may also end up as tweets on my Twitter timeline (@BankyW) at some point.

The Home to your boys WizKid, Skales, and I, as well as a few other people (managers, pa’s, friends, etc) who would CLAIM they don’t live here (*side eye*) has some serious issues to tackle. One of which is caffeine addiction. The caffeine dependency in my house is alarming. You name it, they drink it… like it’s going out of style. Coffee, Redbull and/or all energy drinks; Coca cola, Pepsi etc. They’re so hooked on it; you’d think it was crack. Mind you, I don’t drink coffee. I also only drink Coke/Redbull when I’m mixing it with Hennessy (but that’s a different addiction story for another time). One evening, I sent for a few thousand Naira worth of coke and Redbull. By noon the next day, it was totally finished. And I didn’t touch ONE can. I’m just saying.

The other issue we have is that… how do I even start to say this? There’s a rat that gets high off of cooking gas in our crib. I s**t you not. We’ve done everything to kill/capture/paralyze this rat, but it’s not working. And the only thing it seems to actually enjoy is eating a hole in the pipe that connects the gas cylinder to the stove and then just gets high off the gas. At least 4 or 5 times we’ve had to replace this pipe; so much so now that we’ve started inserting the pipe inside a metal rod to keep the rat from having its way. Sooner or later, I vow that this rat will meet its demise. The last time I woke up to find the kitchen filled with gas fumes I just started randomly screaming ‘COME OUT AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!!!!’ with rat poison in my hands. We’ve tried rat gum, poison etc. At this point my only hope is that it one day dies from a drug overdose. I wish I was joking about this.

One fun thing about the house is that we have pet monkeys. Technically, they don’t really belong to us. We live in a very nice estate, but on the backside of the estate is a swampy/forest-type land where the monkeys live. So they take the liberty of walking on top of the fences/walls of all the houses without a care in the world. I guess they feel like they own the place. Anyway, the people in my house started occasionally feeding the main monkey in charge (whom we named Emma, short for Emmanuel, after our cook). One night, cook Emma hooked up Monkey Emma with some correct dinner before locking up and going home. The next morning, Monkey Emma showed up at the back of my house with SEVEN other monkeys of different shapes and sizes. Literally, their whole clan was there talking ’bout ‘aiyyo whats up with breakfast…’. They still pop by every once in a while for food. I keep warning the house that one day they’ll just decide to break into the house and take off with our fridge but nobody listens to me.

I’m going to Miami with my partners in crime, Tunde & Kunle Demuren. This is our second annual, ‘The-hang-over-movie-aint-got-s**t-on-us-vacation’. Last year was Las Vegas. This year, we’ll be in Miami rocking from July 21st to July 25th, along with some other friends. I’m REALLY looking forward to this; been working really hard lately so I can’t wait to let loose.

I’m on a mission to find a city that rocks as hard as Lagos. When I sang ‘Ain’t no Party like a Lagos Part’, I was speaking the gospel truth. There’s absolutely nothing like partying in Lagos Nigeria. It’s Legendary. Ask around, you’ll find it’s true. Vegas came close, but that’s because of the crazy factor; we were partying with porn stars and Michael Jackson impersonators… hard to top that. But Lagos is out of control. If you’ve never partied here, put it on your list before you get too old to keep up.

*Whatever happened to Hotmail?

*Whatever happened to AOL Instant Messenger?

Thanks to everyone that has supported the Wizkid project, and EME as a whole. We’re very grateful. Wiz is blowing up so fast and I’m so proud of him and the work he put in; this is only the beginning. The album launch in Lagos was a tremendous success so I gotta give it up to everyone that worked to pull it off. If you still don’t have his ‘Superstar’ album, do yourself a favor and stop dulling. Stay tuned for our next superstar-in-the-making Skales. We’re working on his record now so you’ll see his new videos in a few weeks. And then you’ll get new music from yours truly at some point in 2011; probably in the fourth quarter.

While we’re on the topic of music, I gotta let y’all know that I’m really feeling this Frank Ocean guy’s songs. There’s something incredibly soulful yet laidback and deep about what he does with his music and its great. Right now I have songs like ‘Swim Good’, ‘Novacane’, and ‘Strawberry Swirl’ on repeat. Look him up if you haven’t already. I strongly recommend it.

My schedule is as insane as ever, which is weird seeing as I haven’t put out a new album in like two years. I leave for Joburg in 2 days to shoot a Video for the Samsung Theme Song, then back to Lagos for less than 24 hours, then off to NYC again, then Washington DC, then Miami, then NYC again. And all this is in the span of 11 days AND before our Empire World Order Tour starts. All I can say is, love y’all very much, thanks for the support and for believing in us. We’ll continue to try our best to never let you down…

Till the Next Time I blog…

Peace, Love & Chicken Grease.

~ B.W.