I am Nigerian and we have three major ethnic group who have three distinct fields of making a living you can attribute to them. The Hausas who major in politics and Agriculture. That is their major occupation because most of the past and even the present ruler are Hausas and a large chunk of food consumed come from northern Nigeria. The Yorubas are scholars in Education and research. They pay a lot to acquire knowledge. They have a particular state which has the highest numbers of professors in Nigeria. They love Western Education to pieces (excuse the expression). The Igbo which is my own tribe are Business men and women. They can buy and sell anything from spoken words to Technologies. They may not know how to make it but they surely know how to sell it. In a time that the once generally loved Phyno the playmaker who in recent times has killed the purity of his rap music has waxed cold and boring to listen to, Owoh Chimaobi Chrismathner also known as Zoro picks up his mic and makes us know what Rapping in Igbo tastes like. He takes his rap game to the height dropping punch lines upon punch line in the indigenous street vibe called “One on One”
THE MESSAGE
This is a story of an Angered Igbo business man who was duped by his business partner after they completed a business deal. “How will you feel if you collaborated on a job with somebody and made a gain of 1.5million dollars and your business partner siphons one million and shares the remaining five hundred thousand dollars with you only for you to know later that it was a scam?” This is what Zoro discusses with us in this song. He opens the song with a rap chorus stating that he was duped by a certain man after working together. He warns the person that he has to tool up and get his men around him because he is going to come for him. He stresses that he needs his guys to be with all the time because if he catches him one on one that he is going to make sure he pays with his broken and beaten body.
He begins the first rap verse by talking about the pains he went through working on the set business. He talks of how hard he has worked and has never been fool by no body. However he claims that this business partner of his made up his mind and was giving information on the profit figures that was not aligning well. He said the guy kept saying these things thinking he is a “mugu” (meaning fool). He declares that this business partner of his should not worry that one day he will show him some real action. He said he will visit him in his shop at Npkor (a popular market in Eastern Nigeria). He tells him that one day luck will run out on him and he will find himself walking pass his street. He declares that even if he is away from home that his home boys in the hood will get hold of him and break his legs with broken locker legs (lockers are chairs and tables used in Nigerian public school). He declares that his action just made him angry comparing his emotions to charcoal that was soaked in black dye.
Normally when people get into controversies, some fake and unfaithful persons go on social media to make their self-look the victim. Zoro claims that this certain business partner of his went straight to his instagram page and facebook wall and started talking non sense. He claims that he got a venza SUV and a house using part of the money they made. He tells him that he should not worry that when he is coming for him that he will not come for him to quarrel about money. He states emphatically that he will be coming to beat the hell out of him for playing him. He tells him again to tool up and get his real friends to help protect him. He tells him that his act pains him like an office pin to the body claiming that what he did was putting a monkey’s hand into a pot of soup (Igbo proverb). He tells him that it was the wrong call for him because the hands of a monkey smells and that is why he might wake up the next day in an orthopedic hospital. He declares that he is going to obviously send him to an orthopedic hospital because he is a one man mopol (mobile police officer). He tells him that he is resilient like 2pac shakur and an Igbo version of J-Cole. He tells him that he is not going to come for him like Nigerians popular special anti-robbery square (SARS) but will come for him as man to man, one on one. But he tells him that he will run for his life to Jos in Plateau state Nigeria after he is done with him.
He finishes up by painting a picture of growing as kids in the village where children play together with car tires and bicycle wheels. He tell his business partner that he can run like a child taking his tire and wheel and run to his uncle but one thing was sure; he was going to beat him up, break his ankle and make sure that when he slaps him in the face that his fingers will show patterns. He gives him an advice that he shouldn’t have tried playing him because when you play a brother you will understand that life is very hard.
THE BEAT
The beat was made with strict use of gang star percussion elements. There was a full absences of Hi-hats which removes all elements of the popular trap beat from it. This beat is kind of unique because it has two bass guitars used with one octave solo tune. While one base guitar serves as the main baseline, the other serves as a solo guitar sounding the way a base guitar will sound when each strings are pulled individually. Also there is this distant sound of slayer guitar which is used to give weight and depth to the song when added to the multiple drum roll patterns that is used at transition bars.
For the engineering I love the way the solo guitar is equalized to play on only the left side of a stereo head side with the slayer guitar made to sound from one side of the ear to the other ear making the listener have this unique feeling. This job is some real work coming from the Camo Blaizz because he went a great length making a 1990s beat so interesting in the ear.
THE VIDEO
Meo Musa who is the video director of this song did a nice job by taking this video to London. The certain of this video looks like where the lead actor who featured in movie “Kingsman” lived as a teenager with his mum. However I don’t like the colour correction of this video because of the way he tints the levels of the image. It reduced the saturation of the short image. I know he was trying to make it a street rap video but the location which he short the opening verse would have been super cool if he allowed some more dark shades to the colour. Messing with the saturation made the picture too white.
