Copia

Words by others have always given me a lot of the energy I need every day, but I don't find my inspiring words from the typical quotation repositories. As a student of poetry and hip-hop, my influences are often fairly unusual. In Quotidie (Latin for every day), I'll share selections in the hopes that they might inspire someone else as well.

To kick it off, what better than the namesake of my brother and Copia partner? Bright Chimezie was a big one-hit wonder back home in Nigeria with his smash hit "Okoro Junior". The lyrics were a complaint against those who had abandoned their African roots in cultural taste:

I went to a disco party
I requested for African sound
The whole people call me Okoro Junior
Imagine...
Imagine oooh...
In Africa ah...
Okoro le Okoro
Okoro le Okoro...

Bright Chimezie probably wouldn't find the Ogbuji brothers quite native enough, but never fear, we'll never keep things too far from the old Motherland.

[Uche Ogbuji]

So you're floating in the fresh fluff in Beaver Creek, and you decide to duck into the trees for even deeper pow, then POW, you biff and find yourself ass down in a tree well. Do you get out your pen knife and carve your last will and testament on the tree? Or do you...

Bust out that there yoga move Sara (snowboarder) and Pascal (skiier) are demonstrating? No brainer, eh? Good thing, because just a few weeks after S&P's demo I found myself needing that very technique. Wasn't a tree well, but it was a pretty deep basin of snow. What S&P don't quite get across is how much flipping work it is.

[Uche Ogbuji]

Just testing an entry. Link back to akara

[Uche Ogbuji]

Just checking it all works

[Uche Ogbuji]

Jideobi Maxwell Dike Ogbuji was born at home at 12:13 on 28 August 2002 weighing 8lb 8oz and 20 3/4 inches long.

Jideobi "ji-doh'-bee" (sounds somewhat like "adobe") is an Igbo name. It can be shortened to Jide (jih-day, almost like Aussie "g'day"). It has a manifold meaning, depending on the exact pronunciation used. In one form (rising tone on "bi"), it means "one who holds the family, clan or household together". In the other form (descending tone on "bi"), it means "one who holds the heart"). We have chosen to use both pronounciations and thus meanings. Dike is another Igbo name meaning "strong one" or "honored one".

Jideobi is our second son, after Ositadimma.

Ositadimma Nigel Ogbuji, our first child, a boy, was born at 9:43 a.m. on the tenth of February, 2000, weighing 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 19 and 3/4 inches in length.

Ositadimma (commonly "Osita", or even just "Osi") is Igbo for "things will be good from now on." "Osita" is, of course, not to be confused with Spanish for "teddy bear". "Nigel" comes from Latin for "dark" and "Ogbuji" is Igbo for "yam farmer", approximately. So it seems one could translate as "a brilliant start for the dark yam farmer".