Kenhinde and I are old schoolmates from Federal Government College Secondary School, Akure in Nigeria. Ours was a boarding school which brought girls from every part of country to a south-western city in Ondo State, though for the most part of our education, we barely set foot outside the walls of our school or prison as some of us referred to our sheltered home away from home.
Kehinde and her identical twin, Taiwo, joined Feggicolla (our fun name for our school) in SS1 - which is the 4th year of secondary education. It was special to have twins in my class and not being able to distinguish them made it even extra fun for me and my classmates. The only time most of us could physically tell one from the other, was when they wore their after-school outfits (housewears). These came in the form of checkered coloured & white patterned outfits. The colour of your house wear determined the house your belonged to.
Kehinde was in purple house and Taiwo in green and for the most of us, this was the main way to tell who was who, by their house wears. These twins loved to play pranks and would occasionally appear wearing exactly same coloured house outfits, which you can imagine led to some commotion. I however soon learnt to tell them apart based on their personalities. Kehinde is the softer spoken and calmer version of Taiwo.
Since leaving secondary school, our paths have not really crossed besides catching up randomly on facebook but a vlog reintroduced me to a version of Kehinde I had never known nor witnessed during our 3 years in school. I was so intrigued by Kehinde's passion for songwriting which has resulted in an album of 18 songs! I hope her story and lyrics of her song inspire YOU towards attaining the possibilities that await you by realizing your passion and gifts.
Discovering Raw Talent
I studied accountancy at the University of Ado Ekiti, though I had wanted to do Medicine, in the hope of becoming a medical doctor like my amazing mother, who is my role model in taking care of people and with great work ethics. Physics proved too much a challenge for me and so decided to arm myself with a degree that was based on my love for Maths and economics.
During one of the several shutdowns we had University, when lecturers went on strike and we were placed on "compulsory holiday" for months leaving us with absolutely nothing to do, Taiwo proposed we killed boredom by writing a song. "A song?" I asked "but I do not even know where to start". "Well, that is why we should do this" persisted Taiwo, "we each have an hour to come up with a complete song". So I took up the challenge, it started up as a gospel song, then it took up a new form and I gave it life, it all came up to me naturally, lyrics as well as the melody. After an hour, I was ready with my song, which felt so effortless and surreal. I sang my song to empty handed Taiwo - She could not believe what I had just done, needless to say, I won the challenge!