When most people see an artist on stage, they see poise and confidence, talent, dedication, and passion. As an artist, stage performances are the scariest part of my job, I do pretty well but between the “pre-game jitters” and anxiety it is never easy.
I was booked to perform at the grand finalè of a talent hunt at Terra Kulture Lagos. This is one of the biggest stages in the city and I had been looking forward to finally being able to perform there, it however filled me with fear and I became a nervous wreck as the day drew closer and closer.
Sound sultan a legendary Nigerian artist and music industry icon had just passed away, so I decided to make my performance a tribute to the legend. I went into the studio with my producer and made a beautiful remake of his song “Motherland” three days before the event.
I immediately started working with a choreographer on the dance routine for my performance and that was one of the most difficult parts of my preparation because I am honestly not a good dancer.
On the day of my performance, a production company I volunteer with needed me to help with setting up for an event and that took a lot longer than I thought it would. I was physically exhausted but I needed to rehearse one last time with the dancers and the final mix of the Tribute song which I had just gotten.
After three hours of rehearsals, I was ready to head to my room and get some rest before the event.
I kept listening to the tribute song I made because I had just recorded it and I needed to memorize the lyrics to prevent any embarrassment on stage.
I was trying to get some sleep before my performance when I was awoken by my sister's call…” Hello…bro…Aaron is dead…he just died”.
I felt my entire body go cold, I didn’t hear anything else she said, I was in another space entirely. Aaron was like a little brother to me, he was a family friend and we had grown up together. We had spoken a few days before he passed and he hadn’t mentioned being sick even once. I was already nervous about the performance because it was my biggest stage yet, I was performing entirely new material and now this? My bro was dead.
I got another call from my manager shortly after, she was very excited about the performance and what it could potentially do for us. I knew I couldn’t cancel because it might take longer to get back to this point. I had to make the most of the opportunity.
As I took the stage and began to perform I forgot all about the dance routine, the crowd in front of me, and all the other valid reasons why this was scary. I performed my heart out to the crowd and they vibed with me like they could feel every emotion with me.
I got off the stage filled with pride and happier than I should have been given the circumstances.
Somewhere in my heart, I knew Aaron and the sound sultan was proud.
