Meet the Voices of the Diaspora ft. Eche & Chika of Afropolitan podcast - AITL S2 Ep 42

Welcome to Amai To Allow the Podcast. I'm too African to be American and I'm too American to be African. So what do I do? What do I start from? Hey guys, welcome back to Amai To Allow the Podcast with Sophie, aka the mother fricking Audity. Guys, I'm still in Lego so I am still in Nigeria and the struggle, I don't want to say the struggle has been real. The struggle is real, okay. I would do a debrief properly in LA when I finally land. I guess the prize I'm going to LA, we're going to talk about that again in my debrief. But I'm still in Lego so I'm in Nigeria and the past two episodes have shown that when you have opinions like I do, you guys always say like, oh, Sophie, why are you always repeating yourself? I was talking so much because it's necessary because we have opinions like I do. It feels like you are the only one yelling and shouting and people always want to silence you. And I'm too stubborn to be silenced, okay, and that is the truth. And the guests that I have today are also two people who I think are pretty much very stubborn to, okay, two stubborn to be silenced. And first of all, hi guys, Sophie, I am with H.A. and Shika of the Afropods and podcasts. But I feel like, look at these crackheads, I guys have put my producers behind the scenes so that's the nose you're hearing. But I say, I know H and Shika as like H and Shika, my friends, not the podcasts, it was not the business owners, not the entrepreneurs, not the creators, not the Americans who move to Nigeria, the Nigerians who are living in America, the Americans who are like, that is where I corner. I know them as like, my friends, okay. But like I told you guys for season 2, I really want you guys to know that I have some really cool friends like the people that I have my corner, they have my corner for real for real. So hi guys, what goes to the podcast? Hi, it's Tom. Nice job living with you. I'm going to make it Nigeria. I'm going to make it, we're going to make it cut the sour. Don't all make sure you don't cut the sour because they need to see what the reality of filmmaking is in this country. If they take the lies during this episode, oh, all right, but hey, Shika, welcome to my Salad the Podcast. Thank you for having us. Have a happy year. Yeah, no, I'm like, first of all, if no one knew who you guys were separately, not as an entity, I want you both to first what she got first, of course, because ladies first, I support women's rights and wrongs all the time, you guys know that, okay. I want you to just say who you are, what you do in like a few words. I think number one, I'm a writer, okay, period, okay, author, right? But I'm a soft life woman. I started it. I'm an ambassador of it. I live it. I'm feminine. I'm soft, right? I work hard. Yeah. But I enjoy my softness and I just feel like my mission in life is to make sure every woman understands the importance of being soft. I love fun. I need to learn that, guys. I'm here for a reason. I'm telling you. Okay. I would say, I am a frequency holder. Ooh. Ooh, no, no. The videos have been cracking me up. I would say I'm a frequency holder. I am pro-Black and everything. I feel like I want to see a world in which Black people are in their power, in their sovereignty and their influence. And it's something that I'm really deeply passionate about. I love that. both from. Okay, it's like in Nigeria. Yeah, in Nigeria. And also in the US. Okay, it's funny because both of us have different sides of life. How will you create it? Yeah, so my life is I am real Nigerian American like really born in Virginia. Manassas. Manassas. Manassas, Virginia, all grew up all my life in America. So funny enough, the first time I came to Nigeria was when I was 11. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get it to it. But I am from emo. Okay, right? And yeah, my dad is from emo. My mom is from an umbrella. She always likes to remind everyone she's arrow. She's an arrow. People babes. Okay, so I'm arrowing me as well. Oh, I love it. It showed over here. I'll be at states. Ebo as well was born in a new go. New to Lagos when I was 10, moved from Lagos to California when I was 15. Oh, wow. So my 15 years of my first life in Nigeria, next 15 plus US, right? So about California. And I like to specifically say that because it wasn't until I stayed interacting with Chica. I understood East Coast living. It's very different. West Coast living is very different. The America that me I dropped out to was the one that was in my head. They different forms of japa of that. The one I once had was the Hollywood time, the blue water, the, you know, the palm trees. And that's the America that was in my head. But when I met Chica, I said since no, all these, I'm like, this is not the America that we so bad to leave this country for. So I just want to be clear. But yeah, I love that. I'll be at states, all of that. Okay. So because y'all know, I was born in Nigeria as well, moved when I was 17, or 17, 18 to America, moved to West Virginia. So I was on your side. And then went to Louisiana and then New York. So I've always been on this side of the world while you guys enjoying the West Coast left. God, I'm going, well, LA is Atlanta, California are fun. Okay. So I thought it was important to have you guys on the podcast because it's a little conscious we can have and it's a little rouse we could take. I think from Chica's perspective is just like being a woman being just like a feminine woman softfly from a just perspective, just being a frequency holder, being a pioneer. We can talk about the podcast. But I think one of the first coming students that I think is important for us to chat about is where Nigerians who are in some ways the diaspora Nigerians that everyone talks about who are interested in whether we're living here, building here, investing here. And when I was coming to Nigeria, I nearly hit a tail up and I was like, you have to help me because I don't know where to start from. And I think that's a huge problem that we face because there's a lot of ways we can start talking about this conversation. But I think one of the first is I want to go into is why did you find or where did you find your interest in coming back home? So I think you talk about like visiting at 11. Was that like a thing like you wanted to do for family? Was it a thing that your family was like you must go home to visit or was it more of like a I'm curious as a kid I want to go because I know kids are 11 are probably like I don't want to go to Nigeria. I'm my niece and nephew right now. I'm saying Nigeria. No, I'm Canada. No, you're not baby. Well, you are. Thank God. But also you're going to be visiting Nigeria too. So how was that for you? Yeah. So fun enough, I have been in Nigeria living here as an adult for the past 10 years. Yes, I moved back in 2015. That was a rude awakening. We could talk about that because it was real rough when I was really, really rough. But when so unfortunately, my mom and dad divorced. Luckily, they're friends now. But at the time when I came back for the first or came tonight here for the first time, my dad was living in Nigeria. So he was the MD for IBM. And so that's how I just started looking at it. But honestly, I didn't think too much of it. It was just like I just remember at the time you could drive on the road, you'll go to emo, you'll go to butcher. I remember just being on the road doing road trips. That's all I remember when I was younger. It wasn't until I was 21. And I was just about to finish college. My dad said, look, I don't want you to be one of those Nigerians lost in America. So start coming home. Please like any emphasize that for me. He kept drilling in my head. Come home, come home, come home. So I did an internship with Exxon Mobile. What here? Yeah. In Nigeria. It was interesting. I remember I would never forget where I finished by three months. And I was like, okay, it's time for payment because they weren't trying to pay me once a month. It was fine. And then they were like, oh, we don't have the money. I almost tore the house down. I say, I will not leave this place until the money. It's my big account. And someone had to personally send a money from her account to send to me. Yeah, because they weren't trying to pay me. But yeah, that's how I started getting interested in coming back. And honestly, I just felt like I started making friends because I think a lot of times for people who live in America, when you don't have friends here outside of your family, it feels a bit like a jump. It's scary. But from 2008, I started making friends here. And a lot of those people are doing amazing things to this day. So I think when I finally made the decision in 2015 to come back, it was because I had a set of friends. And I broke up my ex. I mean, let's go ahead. I said, F you and I was like, I'm off to that jury. I'm hearing it. I love us. See, I see. So my thing is, I hear that story. And as I was, I think, being in nature, probably seen it in that way, I was of the, maybe the thinking from my family, anyways, of you need to leave because things that happened to me, it was, Nigeria wasn't seen as a place where I could grow anymore. So I think I was of the, before Jakob became a thing, I was Jakob at the 17th of go to college. They go and study there, have a life there. There's no plan of use to come back. There's no life. So it felt like my life was abruptly cut off immediately for me. Like at 17, 18, I was like, you're going to this new country and you're going to figure it out. The idea that you might potentially go back to Nigeria feels like you failed. And that's what they drilled in my head. And I'm not sure if my mom or my family members, but it was like a society thing. Like as an international student, you're in school and they're telling you, you mustn't fill, you was your internship, you must finish your H1B, then your green card, then your passport, and then you're living your life in America. And I'm sure I supposed to be this far thoughts. And if you're thinking of going back or visiting or still connected to it, they're like, oh, you're not successful enough. So can you talk a little bit about that? No, honestly, it's literally the same thing. So I moved when I was 15 and I was going to school in a grace school, grace high school in Baghdada. I was in boarding school. So I remember my parents came to get me and they're like, you know, let's go to the hospital. So at the hospital, they were running tests. So I asked the doctor, like, are we moving? And she's like, how did you know? I'm like, yeah, my bags have been passed seats. But I was born inside this coach. I do something was wrong. I said, no, that was a mistake because I'm about built for the firm. I would just say, like, look, my bags have been so packed. Like, you know, I just said, like, I'm ready to leave tomorrow, you know, and that was the mindset I used to enter America when, which was like the land of milk and honey, like, come here, we have come to eat the fruits of this land and until we have eaten this food. I've finished their joy, but I've no going back, no jacket, no wear, right? And I think for me, that was the mindset I had too, which was like, if you're moving back to Nigeria, you felt like what happened? Like, you couldn't hack it or something else happened, you literally felt. So, to be honest, I credit Chica for a lot of the changes in my mindset when it comes, because I think for me, she was the first person I met who already was born into the privilege of being able to have the blue passport. And I said, it's an, I was choosing to be in Nigeria. And remember, I used to just say, like, did you have feelings for people because you like this? Because I would ask that the way she would carry this country on her head. And I would be like, this is so fast today because a lot of people that come from where I'm coming from, which is Japan are like, if they can just get this thing, they're never looking back. But for you to have it, and they still choose to go back, I remember it would just sit with me like, what's I don't understand what's going on. So, it wasn't until like last year when she was like, go, we need to move back to Nigeria. Thankfully, we've had a company which we raised money for. We actually have staff in Nigeria. So, we actually spent a lot of time coming back to Nigeria, would probably be in Nigeria like five times a year, right? But it was different from actually trying to live and spend more time intentionally here. So, I remember at the time, I'm like, to be honest, I feel more alive when I'm in Lagos. Like, I feel like my, even though yes, there's a lot of things that are crazy, but I feel more alive. And the tradeoff for me is, you know, in America when you drop out, you're thinking about financial world most, I didn't make all this money. I'm able to take care of my family, my friends, all those things. And then you realize that there are different types of wealth, right? There's definitely financial wealth. There's mental wealth, there's physical wealth, there's social wealth, which is community wealth, you know, and even spiritual wealth. And then I remember just realizing like, if I keep making the choice, which I already made for the past 17 years of being in America, anyway, of financial wealth, I was like, something is missing. There's a void. I don't know how to articulate it. I don't know how to speak to it. And I also know when I bring it up to people who are just like, for months, they're like, wait, I remember when I told them like, hey, I'm gonna be spending more time in Nigeria. I'm moving back. My family, my aunties, they're like, I give you a fugitive. I didn't look before you. I didn't look before you. And you can't tell us like, this is the only way to help you. I was like, no, I'm actually making this move, you know? And to be honest, it's been such a great move so far. I think you take the first year to settle in on a standing environment. And then the next year it was us like launching the podcast and really understanding what value can we add to, you know, to the country and not from a place of like, oh, we are better than you. Just saying like, look, we have certain experience. We have gone outside, we've seen things. We've been exposed to certain things. We're not saying all those things are better than here. We're just saying this is the perspective that we have. And we're sharing it. If you can learn something from it, even better. Ooh, I love that. I see. As you're talking, I'm just, I'm seeing the connections, I think, between like how we both view America and the opportunities it has. So for folks who listen to the podcast, they're very, I know I have a lot of Nigerian listeners. I love a lot of American listeners. We also have Nigerian Americans who also listen in. And the conversation is nuanced. But I want you guys to sort of like listen in deeper past what we're even saying and think deeper than that because there's a lot of conversation now about what it means to be African, where home is. And especially from the world that's changing right now for a lot of us is America was seen as this like global power. And that's shifting in a way, right? That's power shifting in a way that the passport is not as strong as it used to be. Or even Canada or Russia, any of these bigger countries. And wealth is home. And wealth is at home for us now. Like there's so much beauty and chaos and intelligence and amazing. That's not all the great things that could be in Nigeria, in Lagos, in Abu Jain, all the states. But there's also a factor of is home welcoming for these investments for this space. So as an African, especially as an Nigerian to what does it feel or look like to have home in two places? Because I know for both of you home is also America. Like we choose to go back and visit what is that welcome like for both of you and a chick especially for you because home really is America in a lot of ways. And you found home here. I think one of the biggest culture shocks for me coming back is I'm having to start over. And I know you've mentioned like making new friends, but I feel so American. Like when I took home, I'm like, what's going on with me? Like, what am I speaking this way? But spending 10 years in a different country and you're not going there to the next. It's like different if Nigeria is like the UK six hour flight boom boom I'm back. Sometimes it's nine, 15 hours, two day journeys to get here. So how is it to how are you very intentional about making home in these two places? Yeah, it's interesting because I had to let go of what it means to live life, right? I think in America, I'll be very honest. America has a very good way of making it seem like this is the only way to live. This is the only way to talk. This is the only way to interact with people. This is the only way how business is done. This is the only way life is happening, right? And I feel like when I first came back to Nigeria, I kept holding on to this American side. I'll look like this. It's little things. Look, it's like I remember, it was this place I used to go to to get like yogurt. And I remember they put like grapes, they put like weird things in it. And I remember just being like, that's not how they do it in America. So I remember like, they're like, why, why are they putting those things? And they're like, no, no, that's how we do it. And I, and my mind, I remember I had to keep reminding myself, but this is what I grew up in America. I had to let that go. I still have my moments. Definitely. And she's always like, she got what's good. I saw my very American ways of living. But I think the moment I let that go and I said, okay, I'm going to adopt to how Nigeria is to think how we dress, how we talk, how we connect with people. And that's how I started to settle into enjoying it. Putting up in America, I'll be honest. America, a lot of people in the rock race. Yeah. Right. Number one, when I decide to have a child, right? I'm going to be on my friends. They're suffering because childcare is expensive. And it's hard to have balance. I like, I tell people all the time, the thing for me for Nigeria. And of course, there's a lot of issues with women issues here. So I'm not going to stay here and act like I know I'm staying from privilege. I want to make that very clear. But I always tell people that in Nigeria, I can be a full woman, right? There's, I don't have a child in all of a sudden. I'm just a mother. And I feel like in America, it's hard because it's expensive. It's hard to get care. It's hard to get. It's not communal. Yeah. That's the moment you have a child or children, you're now in mother for 18 years. Yeah. And then exactly, exactly. And then once they enter 54 40, they're like, okay, now I can live my life as a woman. I don't want that. I don't want to choose. So I felt like me even coming back, because when me and H.A. met, we moved back to America for two years. We tried it. And then I said, I played the inception with H.A. for two years. I said, okay, I'm looking at you. And eventually we said, okay, we're going to come back. But I told him like, I want to feel, I want to be able to have a full life. I want to still be connected to my friends. I want to be able to have a drink with them or hang out with them. I don't want to feel like my whole life is just being a mother. And I feel like my friends, whenever I visit them in America, it's difficult to meet up with them. And it's like, I'm busy. I have family, I have children. Oh, this happened. This happened. Okay. I'll see you in six weeks. So for me, I'm like, well, I might as well just live my cheerio. When I come back, I'll see you. So that's pretty much how I have balanced both. Oh, I love that. Yeah. No, I remember, because like I said, she definitely influenced like my thing. I'm probably not sitting on this couch with you. And I'll be like, oh, I've just been watching it. I'm like, oh, that's nice. That's cool. That you guys will move back. That's great. But I think there was something she said, I don't know. I've even actually everybody up to her. But I remember at the time when we had moved back, she had said something like, oh, like she feels sad or something about something. The past. I was just like, what do you mean? Like, that's why the press. And she was like, you know, there was a reason I moved back to Nigeria. Like it wasn't because I could have been in America by moved back to Nigeria for a reason. Like the community, my friends, my people. And in America, I just feel very stifled. Like there's just not enough. Like, it just feels like, you know, a lot more challenging to have that sense. And I remember just being like, wow, like I've never like thought about it that way. Right? Now, obviously, I'm just going to be we created something. I have a whole community, like my friends, everybody's there. But it's we also do schedule time to connect. Like it's not enough random moments. So I remember just being like, huh, that's interesting. So I knew it could cool. We have to move somewhere. We tried Mexico. Really? We tried. We were in nomads for about two years. We tried more to neighborhood. We lived in different places. And, you know, one time we were just walking in the morning. We're actually walking banana. Like we're walking over there. And she was like, Oh, why don't we move back tonight, Jeremy? I know we have to move somewhere. But this is like, no, like think about it. I mean, you say you always feel alive here. What do you think? I remember just being like, you know, it is right. Like I do feel alive here. But what would that even look like? Because again, a big part of this thing is letting go of the image you have on the expressions you have set for your old self, right? Because you're shedding a lot of things. And you're shedding the status and shedding the perception that comes from being a person who's in diaspora. And you now have to learn a lot of that, like thinking like, no, being Nigerian, living in Nigeria is dope. Like you should be proud of it. You should not have to feel any less than. You're not less than because you've never even been outside of the country. In fact, you can complete globally. So for me, it was on learning a lot of that. And then, you know, we found a place, right? And it was a home. It feels like a home. And I'm like, you know what? I could see myself doing this. And to be honest, right now, you have to drag me out of this country. Like I'm talking about like after being here, the things you see in Nigeria, sometimes you'd be like, bro, in San Francisco, that I'm coming from to people think about this idea. I can't. I can't. There's no space out there. I already seen that. I did it. I already worked on it. I'm like, Nigerian, you see say things and you're like, okay, I don't understand how this is done opportunity in today's world. Like I don't, I don't get it. And the thing is in Nigeria, the beautiful thing is when you execute here and execute well, a lot of the things just come to you. Yeah. Because there's not many people who've been providing a certain level of service at a high standard. So if you've really come here and you execute very well, you can capture most of the market before anybody can even blend. Right. So that's the business side of things. But honestly, I'm grateful we're actually able to move back and move back in a way that, you know, feels gourd or damed and like you're doing something that's really adding value and, you know, it's it's good times. And also, I just enjoy the communal aspect. I feel like, you know, because at least for six, seven years, I played flag football. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. It was caught like my team won a couple of championships. But they became my closest friends. I knew my closest friends came from flag football. I know multiple people that got married because they met someone in football on my team. We had three couples now. We have a meeting as well. And now we're playing paddle. And I feel like we can like, I was like, when we went back to the US recently, I remember just being like, okay, yeah, they're paddled here, but licensing my people. You know, because like with this paddle, I can just show up and I know I can make friends. I don't know if that would have happened organically. Yeah. At least my people, you know, the deep practice I want to see. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I also feel like that's another benefit of being here. It's just being able to see black people every day doing their thing hustling and joining. If you don't realize how much that's such a mental lift for you, I think for me, it's like, now when I go back, it's like, okay, spend time over there. Spend time here. But it's almost like I'm seeing my friends. And I'm trying to persuade them to move back. But the thing is obviously people have different ways and things they have to process. But it's like, wow, bro, we have made trade-offs to be here. But I'm telling you over a long enough time zone or timeline, you might regret a few things like for real. And I think for me, it's now moving back and you're seeing, like, you're able to just run into your friends. Yeah. Just chill. Like the concept of time, because I feel like in America sometimes all your time is like scheduled, scheduled, like everything is registered, right? And it's like she could say this is this whole rat race. It's just being able to sometimes just slowly just have a conversation with a friend and catch up on really like points each other is something where I'm like, I'm not saying it doesn't happen in America, but it's something I'm super grateful to be able to do here now. Yeah. You know, I think as I hear you guys talk, I got dragged recently. Okay. When I was talking on the podcast. So the first episode, the last two episodes I've posted was my, like sort of culture shocks coming into Nigeria, but also things unlearning, such learning. One of my biggest issues since I've been back is the trade off that we are talking about is like the cost of life or living is crazy. And I don't mean cost is in like monetary cost. I mean like light, water, internet. Yeah. I think this is a three basic lens of life, right? Just like that in a way, it doesn't come easy for people. So a lot, there's a lot frustration in the air. And I think we speak from a place of privilege coming in because I've seen I've seen things work, especially because we also know that when you visit other African countries like Rwanda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, you see that things are capable of being at least those three things are capable of being checked off isn't like this works, but for some reason it just doesn't work well here. And you can have a conversation about how like Nigeria is a very classic society. Nigerians are frustrated. They're well, at the core of it is there's so much growth that still needs to happen here. So what are your sort of comments and thoughts around like us coming in? Because I heard you say like, oh, you know, we'll come in. We're doing, you know, you see opportunities that you're able to take it. But you're coming from that Western lens. How are you adapting that to the Nigerian markets and Nigerian audience? But also, how are you confident that it's going to work? Because I feel so frustrated every time. Like I'm sitting in traffic and I'm going, this shouldn't be happening. I'm going to events, doing productions. I'm like frustrated because I'm like, I know when Nigerians are out of Nigeria, they're they're amazing. Like it's it's so easy because the ease is there. Like it's so it's so you can see the brilliance, the authenticity, the growth, the courage. But in Nigeria, it feels like something happens and we're in a bubble and we're just trying to fight to just survive. So how do you get past that? It's to still live here. I feel like it was one of the reasons we started the podcast, right? I think for me, I will get to that. I have, yeah, I have no doubts that this country, like I've just eternally optimistic about this country and not because of just pure optimism. If you look at other countries, China went through the same thing because they had not went to the same thing. Dubai was like a sand desert in 1990. Yeah, it was born. So you know that it's possible for people to come to come and have a timeline and say, you know what, in the next 30 years, all of these things will no longer be the case. And you have to work towards it. I think for me, I mean, it was also part of, again, of what even inspired us to do after parts and like what we raised for. Yeah. Is what does it look like if you get the best of the best of your people to come together to move towards one mission? Know how like the USA said, oh, we'll go to Mars, right? And then they took 10 years before they went to like the moon. Oh, we'll go to the moon. Sorry. Yeah. They took 10 years before they went to the moon. It's the same thing for me when I think about like Nigerian, right? Which is I think the first year we were just observing, right? Like I said to you privately, like you observed the classism, you observed the scarcity mindset, you observe certain things and you're like, this is not a mindset that's going to allow us grow, right? And then you say to yourself, okay, but who are your community of people? Yeah. Right? And you have to be able to then understand that if you can bring the people who share like my native values with you, purpose, shared purpose and say, this is what we're going to go do. It helps you achieve that go faster. One of the ways we can achieve that is through the podcast. So with the podcast, when we're sitting there and talking to people, we're showing people like this is our tribe. Yeah. And what I mean by tribe is not necessarily even like Ebo, you're about Kikuyu or Lua or whatever. It's more of saying these are the people not just in Nigeria, but across Africa, who if we're on the same group chat, you can say, okay, so for you, you handle what's that? Yeah. You handle construction. Yeah. You handle electricity. But you understand. So I mean, you know that we'll also hold each other accountable because we know what a standard is. I want to be stay standards too. I think it was something I was we're stuck in on this morning. I don't mean Western standards. I don't mean like American standards or even Chinese. It's like, no, our own standard of excellence to say, look, we can create beauty. We can create things that matter. And it's just saying for me, it's very, very possible. I don't, I don't, I have zero data about it because every day I meet people, we even interview people who are pushing the boundaries, right? But it's almost like they need to, they're all in silos, right? And there's no one who is bringing them always people together to say, like, oh, so that thing you're doing actually this person can do it. So you can imagine a world where, you know, if we had that sort of group chat, and let's say you wanted to, you're moving back to Nigeria, okay, you need to open up a bank account. Okay, this is the bank you go. This is the bank that we bank with that has the standards that are telling them, okay, cool. You need to go to a restaurant. This restaurant has to be go tuned, approved. Okay, you need to have a plumber. You have, you need to have these people, these are the list of these people we go to. Then that way, you know that you're, you're curating, you start small, but you're curating a, a, a, a red set list of people who have the standards you're looking for. And from there, you start to explain. And what happens? I see this all the time in Nigeria is, as you start to do that, because the citizens are craving that sort of service, too, they'll be like, how can I be a part of that? How can I pay to have access to that? Or how can I pay to have my business featured on that? And then you know that, like, listen, if you mess up here, is one of the two strikes that said, so you keep the businesses honest, the people hold each other accountable and you start building from there. That's the way I look at it. But that was one other thing I want to add is you need to invest in the people that are around you, right? So the people who are working with you, the people who are around you, the people who are putting services into you, invest in them. So a perfect example is the other day our driver, right? He said he wanted to become my police, right? So it's like, okay, like put like money towards that, right? Like, let him upgrade. Like it should be, if he decides to leave, he should feel better than he started with you, you know, same thing with the person who are chef that cooks for us, right? She has already told me, hey, one day I want to do catering, like sometimes I need days off to do it. So sometimes I just give her extra money because I'm like, okay, that's building towards her business. So I think for me, like, I'm very like causing it about that. Like everyone that works with me, the first question I ask them is what do you want? Like what do you want to see yourself in five years? I don't want it to be, you're just a cook and that's it's, you know, if you say you want to have catering business, okay, how can I help you? There's that business. And I think more of us, I sure needs to do that. We need to start asking, okay, everyone is around us. Everyone we're touching. How are we helping them? Even a guy that works with us for our podcast, our videographer, like, I know where you started. Yeah. You know, I started working with him years ago, just me and him. Now he's doing our podcast, right? And I already asked him, what do you want? Oh, I want to do studio. I want to do this. Okay. How do we invest in, you know? So that's, I think, another thing is if we start to invest each other, put a little bit of care. You know, Nigeria is very, it's very hard. You know, how can I buy it? It's hard. It's hard here. Empathy is hard. Exactly. Exactly. It's like, empathy is very expensive. And I think, as we're talking about, so like our interactions here, especially one of the biggest culture shocks that I've started learning about living in Nigeria is empathy is expensive. But also, when I was moving to America, you get to school. So I went through college. So you get to school and you mainly go to the Africans or like the International Student Association. And I have that cure that list for you and how to survive. And then when you, when you, you go to the real world, right? I remember when I first moved to DC, I joined a group called Jalofjist. And Jalofjist was where I knew, okay, these are the restaurants that have the African food. These are the places that have the parties. They're the places that have the markets. And I enjoyed that because it helped me feel like a community. And I see that in the Asian communities, we're going to different countries and there's always a Chinatown or career town because they find each other and they want to protect what they have. I think one of our biggest things is Nigerians, we don't oftentimes know what we have to be protected, right? And even like when we come back home, too, there's too many people who are operating in silos. And everyone is like, they're hiding like, oh, I don't want to tell you what I'm up to because I want to take that. I want to have that. So how do you battle? How do you even figure that out? How does it even start? I'm telling you that scarcity mindset. One of the things I was thinking about is, like when coming to Nigeria, even when we're coming in, right? Yeah. I'm just going to talk normal. I mean, this is obviously people who are going to be a diaspora. You cannot enter this country humbly. You cannot leave your humanits at JFK because they won't respect it. And the thing is, internally, I'm a humble person, but I know that I have to show up as an old guy because once I've crossed the baseline of a guy, then we can't talk normal. Because you see in this country, people put on masks so much, they have like 10 in their hearts before you do the house. And so before you get to the layer deep, you have to go through each mask, right? And for me, it just gets so frustrating sometimes because you're like, look, we're trying to get somewhere. Let's just give past this all your performative BS and go straight to it. But you're like, you know what? This country is hard. It's developed calluses. That's what it's called in calluses, right? So you need to literally go through that and then get past. And I think for me, it was understanding that when you're doing deals in Nigeria, especially as somebody who's coming from a diaspora, you're the one who needs to take the guarantee of like most times, and I'll just break it down very simply. The reason that persons don't really need to work with these, that they're scared of a couple of things, which is I'm going to get scammed. I can't trust you. Trust is very low. Trust is right. Yeah. So you as a person who's coming back from the diaspora needs to be the insurance of trust. Like it's basically saying, it just feels it's on me, right? So what does that mean is if there's money to be lost, it's on me. If this thing fails, it's me that will have the ultimate skin in the game. I've realized that that works better because once they know that you're guaranteeing that they can say, okay, the type of person who would do that is probably somebody who's looking to build long term, right? And the thing is it's so hard sometimes and it's kind of to find people who you can play long term games and with long term people. Yeah. And once you find those people, hold them tight. Like don't go anywhere. It's okay. It's me. Are you going to go this 10, 15 years or go? And I think for me, it was realizing like when you're coming in, you just really need to also, you can't be poor. I'm just going to be very, I just realized something like I think it was the other day where I was like, man, when I realized that somebody would have blocked something. If the if this was how I was feeding myself, the way this country works, you cannot be. They will disrespect your hunger. They will use your old guy. They'll use it for the best. So you need to really come in from a place of look, you're not paying my bills. I'm not paying your bills. We're just trying to go create something. This is not how I'm going to eat today. But if this works, it can feed not just me and you, but feed other generations. And I think it allows them to relax a little bit more versus when they're like, oh, you need me. Oh, God, in this country, if they knew that you need them, or the disrespect that you see. And I'm not trying to make it very bleak, but it's like it's just saying that there's a myopic way of thinking that you need to break past. And that's why for us, even as we've come back, we've been building our own community of people who are like, look, we can have a simple conversation. Like it has been on this podcast. Like it was just a quick conversation. Like, boom, boom, don't do it. Oh, well, what time you do this? It's like it's like, is it a good look? Is it a bad look? It's like, no, Sophie's my friend. We're coming to do it. It's it's done, right? And I think for us, it's building those media of people who shed those like my own values and then showing the people who are not looking to buy those values, the cost of not buying these values. But because what that will look like is as we start to expand and compound and build what the not just financial work, but all types of world people will be like, wow, I want that life. Yeah. Or I want to be a part of that. And so how have I not been been a part of that? It's because of the sort of myopic thinking you have been on the scarcity mindset. Yeah. Okay. So I have the question. I can go first give you an idea of what the questions are like leading to. What is something that's maybe Western or American that you wish was you wish existed in the Nigerian society. And I'll give you an example of what I noticed. So when I first came back, I remember I went to a restaurant I was eating and the server was super sweet, so kind. But I remember she kept just like she kept saying, hello, hi, thank you something as they were talking. See, someone mentioned like, oh, if I had money, I wouldn't have been being this kind of place. I'll be somewhere else. Right. I wouldn't be a server. I'll be doing this. And it made me realize that we treat service workers in Nigeria specifically so shitty, so terribly. And I mean like service workers in like whether I said last tech, your makeup artist, your server who's serving you food person who's a chef. So terribly because again, the classic society we live in it's like there's a layer to it. You can't possibly be a house manager or a server in a restaurant and also be going to Quillox the next night. So enjoy yourself. I have fun because that's know how money works here. But in America, your servers, some of them are maybe just working as side gigs. So they could mingle with people could be bartenders for fun. And then they also have nine to five and have money or they could be trust fund kids who's praying send them to do this thing. And there's not a level of sort of like subservience with it. It's more of like this is just how it works there. So something I really stuck with me because I feel like that's what's permeated the society and it continues to keep a lot of people down because there's no up like you if you're a service worker today, it's going to take you don't see the vision of maybe what could 10 to 15 years look like of you opening your own restaurant because there's no ladder to go up from. There's nothing to afford mobility at all for the most part. They could be and because I don't want to be like general, but for the most part, there is. And I think that's really disappointing. I would say it's funny. This might be a little spicy because we talked about. Tell me I might too. I want to see married people have fun and we friends. I want to see that in Nigeria. It's too often. I go to the club. I'm speaking to a guy. No, and I'm greeting this girl. And I'm like, this is not your wife. And a lot of people are kind of like confused. Like, oh, you guys are friends. You guys are friends. Like, and I'm like, yeah, like, yeah, we're friends. But we're also friends. And I feel for some reason, you know, there's multiple layers to it. Sometimes it's an arranged mirror. Sometimes it's, oh, this look good for the family. Sometimes it's, oh, I was ready to get married and you're the first person around. There's many layers to it. But for some reason, I feel like in America, it's very, it's very normal. Just as he married people, friends, they're out and about. They're being with other couples. It's very normal. I feel like in here is a little taboo. I don't know what that's about. But even the other day when I was playing panel, I was like, wow, we're the only couple here. Like, where are the other couples, you know? And I know other made women that play paddle, but they don't bring their husband and vice versa. So I would like to see more of that. I love that. And just figure it out more than that. I think it's in my face like a traditional thing or the traditional mindset because there is a, I have seen that I actually didn't pick up on that. There is a very like, oh, my madame is at home. My dad is there. And I'm here living my life because marriage is not seen as like, oh, you and your friend or your partner can finally enjoy life together. It's more of like, I have to do this thing to provide this family for this story that my family wants from me and then I got to move on from it. That's definitely something I wish we saw more for sure. I feel like the first thought that gave me to my head was in a net. And I know, I know it's petty, but like, man, it's not petty. So, you know, so when Nigeria does, are you kidding me? So people don't realize this. Like, we don't have, because people think Mbps is like, okay, cool. You can get 100, get 200, but as people who do content, bro, when you're downloading a big file in this country, you can't go to sleep. It's over at night. So it was for like, I didn't realize that I remember we had to go plug into one five hour six something subject. I was like, oh, but then when I'm in America, I'm talking about where I say, Houston or San Francisco, my first experience is 450 Mbps basic. I remember like, you see file that I gel you'd be saying, oh, yeah, yeah, it's I was called bro in 20 minutes done. 20 minutes. 15 minutes done. 10 minutes. I know it's petty. I know it's not simple. But I'm telling you like, it's something that's the first time. It's also simple. It's easy. I'm like, it's even because it's easy fix that someone somewhere in that internet sector definitely took that extra billion. Yeah. Yeah. To remove the cables. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we have it. I don't know. It was styling that we have. It's a Niger instead of moving man. I'm like, well, it's not the same sky. It's the same sky. We all point to the upstairs. Like, what's going on? Like I literally know what they told me that, oh, oh, God. You know, it doesn't have to do that. Sorry. Let me let me add so much. You're triggering me. That's how by by the way, they told me that because we've been having issues with our French. Yeah. So they're not fixed. They're not fine. He said that they're finally fixed it. And then he now said, oh, God, that they told him because many were laughing about it, that the apparently the issue is, you know, the knob and the high can increase the coldness and everything that is surely stay at three or four. That if it goes to eight, which is the highest it's supposed to only be cooling the freezer top and not the fridge. How's that to him? Oh, God. They have been building fridges for 100 plus. Yes. Why is it the idea that I'm let me tell them to fully go on or down? Like, this is a new fridge. So I'm like, should you know, go back to the other function and say, instead of let me tell you me, please still fix the problem. And it's little things like that. Sometimes when you're like, imagine if I ain't our best pie. And they're not telling me that the fridge are those boats that I can only keep it between three and four. That if I go up to five. It's a good point. What do we say? You know, and I think it's little things like that where you're like, I always catch myself because she can definitely, they still trigger her. But when you're about to be like, this thing is your set to me. How does it make sense? What we through how you work from is really critical thinking. Yes, critical thinking. So you know what's crazy? You know what's crazy? Oh, so I'm dyslexic, right? And because I am from a young age, like I had to like sit down, I had to do hook-down followings. I had like, I had extra reading. I had a lot of attention when I was young, right? And I remember I hated the section in every book reading comprehension, yeah, critical thinking. I hated it. I'd sell that it, but I hated it. I always hated it. It was so I moved to this country. I said, oh, this is why I couldn't look at thinking. It's so funny. Because it's, it's, it's, so what does that happen? And I see it most with service workers is like, you'll say something, they'll say, oh, but I was told this. They can't think outside of that box because they're afraid of whatever that feedback may be. And they're not also thinking like, oh, okay, there's another way. Perfect example. Very random, but when we go to make a right now, critical thinking is, I've seen this guy hundreds of times. Yeah. I know who he is. I know their names. I greet them. But if we're not on that list, you know, oh, story, story, story, story, story, story. There's no critical thinking. I don't just look at you like because I'm in service outside of it. No, I just don't just look at you like it has to be. I know it's crazy. I feel like I've, I've, I wonder what it is as a society does, allowed us to behave this way. And again, guys, like, conversations like these need to happen because I hope you're listening to this not to be combative or like, oh, why did it take like a while for you to realize that sometimes you just need to pause for a second and think why? Why won't you be thinking past this box that someone somewhere with us in the government, whether that's from family, as told me this is exactly why I'm doing this thing. Like as for me, when, as a creator, when I even first start as a kid, right, my mom would tell me something. I would say, why am I doing it? Like, why explain it to me. Let me understand, right? And that's the things that I feel like a lot of Nigerians, when we as a kid, they were beaten. So they couldn't ask questions, you know, like as a child, you're in square, it starts saying, oh, yes, I know that's the meaning of the world, but that's the only meaning of the world is no other nuance to it. It's an education system too. It doesn't teach you. It doesn't teach you anything in that manner. So as you grow up to be adults, especially with a system that's pulling you down continuously, you start looking like, okay, I know that my old guy would shout out to me if I do it this way. So no matter what, even if this person is right, I'm going to do it this way only. And something that's always frustrating because I'm like, I become fly. And you see that's when Nigerians fly when they're outside of Niger, because I'm telling you intelligence is high. It's high there because there's the brain there, the brain is there. The, the, the thoughts is there. It's just more like the system is made sure you're not allowed to think past what the system has taught you. And you see that's how most countries don't grow. And I, I'm grateful that I see the diaspora coming in. We're going to lead, lead into the podcast and after posting all the work you guys do, because I see the impact the diaspora has and also the conversations we're having about what our parents taught us, how good it's been for us to sort of like see outside, because it's, it's a double-edged sword, right? Like when I left Nigeria, I didn't think I was going to, you know, be one of the folks in the diaspora coming back and saying, you guys are doing this thing there, let's try. But I think we forget that it's our resources. I used to do this in that universe. Like it's our resources. It's our land. So me going over there to take the resources is not me coming back to tell you this is Westernized. It was ours to begin with. We're supposed to be having this power, this authority, the conversations the world is having that is leaving Africa out of the conversation, but they took it from us. And because we are in our systems, and that's from religion, with us from family, with us from education system, we forget that we can break past that and ask the questions that are needed and necessary. So leading to my next question then, what is something that's very Nigerian and that's very American that you just want to merge together? That would be great. So very Nigerian is our fashion. Yeah, Nigerian fashion is number one. It's the top level, right? And what I'm wearing today is Emmy Cosmetics. Nigerian fashion. I just want to merge the ability to walk into a store like Zara and easily pick it up. We were just talking about it's right before you guys go here. We don't have to. We don't have that. Like I just like everything is. So I kind of like the element of like, oh, this is unique. This is one of one. That's cute. But most of the times I'm like, I just want to be able to pick that Nigerian outfit and I know I go to the store is there as it is. And it's always the same. America has figured out that part. We have not figured out manufacturing when it comes to Nigerian fashion. So I would like to merge the two. I love that. I love that. Honestly, for me, they're two thoughts of words that come into mind. One is audacity and the other one is swag. Like man, listen. It should always be indeed. Man. Yeah. But let's start with swag. Let me tell you some man. Like, because I used to do events, right? The parties used to do everything. I would always have the front view of seeing the Nigerians who are Japa. I mean, they're just coming to fresh off the boat. They're coming off the boat. The beard is not connecting. Like things are crazy. Eyes are red. They have not eaten. And then, you know, maybe they start walking on Facebook. They start walking on the street. They get their first head caught. They start doing their nails. Their beard is connected. Let me tell you something. When that Nigerian shows off, ah, they know it's going to be real. Cause at that point, you see the level of Swagga, the level of audacity. They're like, look, yeah, this country. This one that we're in. Yeah. Anything that I do, I'm going to enter inside. Right. And I think it's the thing that's why you see us thriving in these industries because it's almost like a Nigerian. At that point, he's like, oh, they made me stick. Yeah. Let me enter here. And there's goat inside. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, they'll, you know, belling conference over here. Well, you're sharing that kick. You know, so that's why that audacity is something that I really love. I think it's something that in environments that I set up for us to win, we will always try. Right. I think it's just a reminder that like the reason this whole crowd is in a barrel of mentality is keeping us out. Is we need to really fix it because to be honest, if this country, I was saying something, I think God knows that this Nigerian works. This people will be unbearable because can't imagine if this country was working. Look at how swag right out right now. Look at how audacious we are right now. Look at how mad we are as the people are ready. Imagine this country was divine. I just imagine like your level, bro, we will never leave. And the level of disrespect will be talking with what you like to see. Guys, what are we disrespectful right now? Imagine the level. So God knows that we have to homeless ourselves first. So I will be ready for it when he blesses us with the full thing. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. I think mine would be like the standard of beauty with the level of service. So I think Nigeria just, we have a standard of beauty and upkeep a lot of women, especially just love to uphold. But the level of service is just something that I think is still just still a bit shaky. We're still trying to figure out how to make that work. But if I could bring that to together, oh God, I'm gonna see. I would never leave home. Guys, I would never leave. I'll be here. Okay, guys. So we've talked about what I think connects us deeply. But I also feel like one of the other things that connects us deeply is the fact that we have a podcast, right? You guys have a podcast, I have a podcast, but before that podcast was a podcast, um, I for Paul, it's in for me. I'm going to tell you what poison meant to me. And then you guys can tell me what you wanted for poison to me. And then we can talk about the podcast too. So when I heard about for Paul, it's in it was around the era of I was just, I think I just hit 21, 22 in America then. And as a young Nigerian who was not born in America, I didn't know how to community. And I mean that like as in, I was still very much to Nigerian for the Nigerian Americans because I don't want this. I didn't grow up here. I don't understand what you're saying. I don't, I just, my, my, that's my, my besides that I was expecting to go somewhere like, it was just a different journey, right? And then I was very, very, very, very Nigerian for the Americans, right? So I was in this bubble. And as I moved different states, of course, I enjoyed school. I made friends there. I just didn't have that larger community, especially as I was graduating from college, getting my masters and then looking for a job that a young professional time in my life was where I found out for Paul, because that was where I was like, okay, I'm out of college now. I don't have maybe like a sorority or a fraternity. I was, I joined. I don't have any group. I'm tied to my college was all the way in the South. Now I've moved to the West Code, the East Coast. What, where is community? And so groups like Afro-Politan were so pivotal in my understanding of what it meant to be a Nigerian American in Nigeria, because it didn't matter that I wasn't born in America. It didn't matter that I was a Nigerian immigrant. You just met it. I was Nigerian or I was African. And the like-mindedness of the people in that group was so special to me, because it was like, you folks were in the arts in Silicon Valley who were at designers, were actors, were fashion folks. You would party together. You would have for a beat so you can go to parties and events. You're hearing about FinTech and all these things. And that felt so special to me. And I think, I think, and this might be a hot take, we've lost those groups now. And I blame you, H.A. for that. I blame you, Chica as well, because I was, I'm thinking about 2019, 2020, 2021 era of like the Afro-Politan, the Amplify Africa, the Jalofjist, the like groups that you knew were putting these things on. And it wasn't, I don't mean Patsizo guys. I'm also talking about parties alone. I mean like gatherings, intimate events that people could bring together, creators, young professionals. I don't think we have that anymore in America specifically. I think that's because most people now have moved to come do those gatherings in Nigeria and know America anymore. I don't know what that says about the society we're living in. The America where we're running away. But tell me about what Afro-Politan was when you first started it or when you first thought about it and when it's become now. Yeah. So I think honestly, to even understand it, it's, I moved to America when I was 15. And this is this is a young child or teenager who's only known everything to be black. But then when we moved to California, I was the only black kid in my high school. Wow. Okay. So you can imagine you're getting introduced to race and like the whole concept of it. And you're saying to yourself, like, okay, but I know what it is to be like a doctor, have doctors in my family. I know what it feels like to be a lawyer like my family. Like you know the thing that it took a while because all the the white kids thought that I should know everything I had to do with blackness. I didn't. I don't. Yeah. You know, like you should know about Jay-Z, you should know about. You should know about all these things and all about all the music. So it forced me to go learn about everything blackness. And when I came out out of it from was like, wow, being black is dope just to do all of it. Like with your Caribbean, if you're Afro Latina, like everything in all of it is dope. But I remember going to college on my entire like prerequisite was I need to be in a school where somebody else is black. Yeah. I remember the first school I went to was San Jose State. And the first black person I said, go up to them like, oh, where are you from? And they're like, oh, my name is I'm from Nigeria or I'm Nigerian. I said, say left. Say left. We're coming over here, right? But I think going into college, it was this understanding that man, like I thought coming into this college system will be what kind of forever. But you still had this whole fighting between Africans and African Americans or Nigerians and Nigerian Americans, right? That was even a layer deeper too. And so for me, who was basically in the middle, which is like moving on 15, so I still had my Nigerian background. But I still was like younger enough to still assimilate into the American system. I'm like, guys, why do we even have to fight each other? Why do we have to choose? Why can't we even be abundant? So I started doing Afro-BT events in 2009, 10, right? This is before anybody thought it was cool. You're doing festivals and sorry, you're doing concerts like two-faced P-square, all like OG. And from there, I think 2015, 2016, we stayed out for Paulton, but it was just parties, right? And I think what had happened with one of the club owners I knew, reach out to me and he said, hey, I now own this club, but I wanted to be pure Afro-BT. I want you guys to lead it. So now it went from, at the time, we maybe do community halls or do social events every now and then maybe once a month. Now he's saying to you every week, which was very pivotal because you're like, wait, you're saying every week people can come somewhere to listen to Afro-BT obviously now it happens everywhere, right? But that was a very pivotal moment. And I think for me, it was the same thing you described, right? Which is, I mean, it's why I said about like being a frequency holder, but it's really more about we know black people for a lot of things, right? Like sports and entertainment, whatever, but what does it look like when a black person is in his full power or her full power, right? When you show up and you're like, look, we're not here to be taken advantage of, we're not here to be railroaded, we are going to fight for what our people deserve and we will show up because we know the games and we've read the same books, we've been to the same schools, we've seen the games, we understand how to play it and but then the difference between us and you is we also know how to have fun, right? And we're going to do it our way with the R swag, with our community, with the people that we love and show you how to build us because we are descendants of people who build pyramids. Yeah. So we shouldn't even be in any way feel like any type of like inferior complex is like, no, we come from like kings and queens and gods and all that type of stuff. And I think for me, it was what I was hoping that after Paulton, and I'm still obviously hoping that it reflects, which is like, look guys, we don't have to shrink in any rooms we walk into when we walk into like I'm in Mexico, I was a my friend only and they were serving us water and they brought my water in like a small glass and then I looked over to the table and the white people that were serving their water was in a big glass. Now it's a small thing, right? I called the waiter over. I'm like, I'm going to eat that glass in fact, bring the whole picture because like it can be a thing where we're feeling it's not one of those things where I'm like, I don't always carry whiteness in my head. It's just more saying like, look, we come from these things and for whatever reasons, we have been disconnected from our truths on our history and our realities, right? And I think a job that we hope the podcast is able to do is help people remember what's already inside of them. And not just, oh, we're trying to recover. It's like, you know, we're trying to reclaim because this is already within us, right? But we don't remember as much. So yeah, that's what I would say being after Paulton means for me. I love that. Okay. So was there ever a moment where you thought like, hmm, after Paulton might not work? I feel like as a business person, you're always like dealing with the fact that this thing you're doing, you know, if you know, walk, if you walk, right? But I think I started early too. So I started doing events when I was 17, 18. I think the first event I ever did, I had, it was Nigerian Independence Day. This was around 2010. I had 500 people, right? And you sold tickets. And I actually, sorry, the reason. Okay. This is definitely a backstory here. So the reason we actually did this event was I became president of the Nigerian Student Association. And then we were in debt. So I came into office and the previous administration, like there, I don't know what it was, but the association was in debt, $800 in debt. That's crazy. But you're you're like 17, 18 and they're telling you $800 in debt. So I'm like, okay, cool. So what are we supposed to do to fix this? They're like, oh, you know, we could do big cookie sales. We could do drive when you're washing the car. I was like, car wash, right? And I remember just being like, car wash, big cookies, like for a king. And so I remember I called my uncle, he might watch this. So I'll never forget this. So I called him because I'm like, I mean, I should have been found him. I just give me $800. That's the biggest thing quick quick. Now, what are you doing here? It's like, call him and he's like, I actually, that's not how I like work. So you're going to have to figure it out. Like, I'm not giving you $800 just to go cloud debt. Like, so is that a solution moving forward? And so, and then he then said, like, you should actually consider doing the car wash and doing the big cookie sell. And I think for some reason, no disrespect to anyone who's ever done a car wash. But when he said that again, I feel like I told you this, like, my rage is such an interesting thing. Like, I'm like, car wash. I'm a big age. Like I'm washing cars. So how much? How much about you? How much about you? At the time, it's 2000 and said car washes with $5 for car. So you know, come on. So for my three, I was just like, man, nah, like, we got to figure out a better way. And I'm like, she just throw a party, right? We use the party and then use the party and cloud from the debt. And you know, whatever remains, we just keep. But then at the time, the students didn't want to do it because nobody had ever thrown an athlete's party before. And then there's also to throw a party, you still have to put up money to throw up the party. So you can actually end up losing more. I'm not good. Cool. I'll take the risk. So I put up my own money 500 people showed a sold tickets for $20 a pop. It's sold bottle service. And then when you sell at that level, and you're young, and you get like $10, $15, $20, so there's no fucking looking back. We're like, we're like, okay, so we cleared out the debt. And then from there, that's how I started doing the events. But the thing though, coming back to the story was I feel like after that, right, you start doing all the events. We had momentum. I didn't take an L for a long time until like 2015. So I studied these events at 2010. So all my other events were sort of up until then. It wasn't until 2015 where I stayed doing my masters. And I remember getting to the point where I become complacent, which is you, you get so used to winning where you're like, I can do this in the formula now. Like there's nothing special. Like I can just make it happen. I remember that Pitsko Yvette. It was only my friends that showed up. And it was like 500 people. I'm like, hey, hold on. What's the rest of the night? Literally, I'm talking about like this space can hold like maybe 500 people. And only like 80 people show up. I'm not used to it. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? What's going on over here? And it forced a deep reflection. And that's actually when the opportunity for a politician came. I remember having to just reinvent myself and having to start from fresh. I mean, okay, even though people know of me for this, I have to go kill this other brand and resurrect or or build this other new thing and then create a name for it. But I think what happened is psychologically, there is something to be said about going into an event space. And it's empty. And maybe the capacity is a thousand people, five thousand people, whatever. And you have to say to yourself, on the day of this event, this place will be packed. When you do that and do enough reps with that, you get very familiar with like failure, right? Because you will fail. In fact, the failures are plenty. But what you then do is you realize, like, as you, you pass each stage, you start to build a thick skin. When you realize that you're not going to be judged, even by the failures, right? And so that you also want to understand that failure is actually part of the game. And I think that's another thing that us as Africans, we don't do such a good job of, especially with entrepreneurship, you will fail. Right? But the thing is, how do you bounce back from it? The failure shouldn't define your identity. It's to say, Hey, I've learned from this. And I will apply it to the next thing I'm doing or to the next part I'm working on. So for me, there have been so many moments, even until now, where you're like, look, this thing can fail. But I think for me, you've developed instincts, and thankfully, cheeky to has also been entrepreneur. So when you're bouncing ideas of each other, you're like, and I want to go work. But you never give up. I got zong as you're alive. I remember one of my friends said to me, like in Nigeria, you know, we, they, we, they wrote dice when I go, they give double six, right? And when he said it that way, I was like, so happy because it was like, I don't know how you're alive. I was always watching that guys, because once that double six hits, nobody remembers anything else that goes before that. That's true. I feel like I love that you guys have come from a proposal that I knew, which was just a group, you know, parties and now you're hosting it as a podcast. So there's a proposal that still exists, but there's also a podcast entity or network based on for that. And you both are the co-hosts for the podcast. So how has it been having a podcast? It's hard guys. Oh, my day. But how has it been like interviewing folks getting to build that off the ground as well? Because I don't even know how you do it. Okay. So funny enough, a lot of people don't realize that we actually had a podcast technically late 2021. It was just him. I was not part of it. And we actually had really great guests. And actually it did decent. Like there was some good numbers. But I remember I think we're just, it just felt like there was no strategy. There was nothing. It was just like, okay, we're just doing it. We're just showing up. There was no, you know, intentionality. So the second time around earlier this year, me and Etchay were doing our planning for Afapolitan. And you know, we, we tell people that we came from different sites of why we decided we wanted to do the podcast again. For me, right? I, one of my favorite podcasts is Diary of the CEO. You know, that podcast. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and putting up things like Jane or happening, Jane. But my challenge with that podcast, and when I started to analyze it, because we analyze hundreds of podcasts, just back and forth, different ones, different formats, was that he started doing this round table thing, right? So he would get like four or five people together, and they'll talk about money. They'll talk about like, I think the recent one I saw was like, women, the state of women, men of pause, all these things. There was never a black person. So my issue was he's rising in the ranks. He's literally top five podcasts globally. He's the number one business podcast. So my challenge was if he doesn't have black people in those round tables, then globally, people think black people are not experts. They're not thought leaders. They're not, they don't have frameworks, right? And that's, it's a psychological thing that subtle, but it would happen over time. So I told Ed Shea that this new podcast has to be from that perspective, where sure, every now and then, we'll interview celebrities, we'll interview, you know, uh, uh, taste makers, you know, people that everybody knows. It was fun. Yes. People fun. Exactly. Exactly. But our best podcasts are always the most underrated person. I remember when we interviewed Diam. No one knows him. We know him. We know what he's done. And it was, probably one of the most best performing podcasts because people are like, wow, someone is thinking about concerts and festivals in this way. Someone is creating a fintech solution for a concert. Like nobody even realized guys were building things like this. So for us, it's been that, I think the hardest thing has been with the popularity, we're getting more and more requests. And we gotta be an etch. We fight about it. We have arguments about who should be on the show, who should not. And I think for us, we always say, but what will someone learn from this? And we have to always think critically about that. We had to like upgrade our stuff, you know, our cameras, you know, because at one point, I said, etch, we need four cameras. I need every. Every person has an angle, you know, um, and we're still, this is six months in. Yeah. It's still early days. Um, it's very hard. I think we've seen a few podcasts pop up after our own. People don't understand. It's hard. It's hard. You're shooting. And you're shooting consistently. Yeah. People don't realize that we have probably at least another one, 15, 25 episodes. We have not released. What? Yeah. Yeah. We have a backlog of stuff like that. Um, and people don't understand how much research we put into each guest, how much intentionality we put into each guest. So I think a lot of times two, this is for people who have podcasts, right? Um, do not start a podcast unless you're serious, unless you're ready to do the research, unless you're ready to, to have the days, it doesn't work. Um, and, and also most people are still trying to do audio ones and they don't realize that video is a heavy lift. It's another layer. So I think a lot of people just say, Oh, I just want to have a mic. I want to talk. And people don't understand there's a lot of work that goes in it. And to be honest, we've been lucky, but most podcasts, I saw a look. Yeah. Yeah. Now look, I'll go into. I know. Yeah. We work. We work hard. But most people don't realize most podcasts, even Stephen Barlett's podcasts, he said it took him five years for it to hit. Right? Um, so I think for us, people don't understand also that our podcasts is a product of me failing my own personal YouTube for over two years, because I was just trying to figure out how to do YouTube. And I took all those lessons and learning into building the podcasts. We're very data driven as well. So there's a lot of different mechanics about building it. Um, but I'm just really excited because I think for me coming into the year, you know, I had a, uh, we have went to a funeral. My uncle passed, right? And I remember the funeral. I was really taking it back like man, he has a signal as I do. He had lived a very colorful, interesting life. But I remember the sermon had been watch out for the profit of man to gain the whole world, but lose the soul. Right? I'm just reflecting so deep with this with like my melcoge and we were just talking helic shout out to helic if he's listening. Um, and we came to the conclusion on two things is there was just the frameworks that we used to like for me, the person who got here and it was like, what is the thing that you think that you want that you feel will give you the feel that you what is the thing that you think that you want that you feel will give you the feeling that you think you want to have. Okay. That's one. The second one was what is the most expressive life mistake? And the answer was it's a midlife crisis. And so we were going deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. And I think for me, it then came back to okay, let's say you were to restart everything today. Forget about all the things you've done today. What would you want to do that you believe would have impact, but would bring back the joy of what after part of meant for you like back in the day before you raised money for it before you became a VC, a VC back startup because a lot of these things you aspire to them because you think it's going to be like the cool thing or the saddest thing, but it comes with a whole different thing you don't realize. I remember just being like the joy with those important events like I missed that. Like I missed the communal feeling and missed like the storytelling all of it. And it was like okay, what's the platform that can enable you to do this in a really good way? And it was it's a podcast. But then at the time, if you're told anybody like everybody's picking up a mic these days, right? So you're like man, even for me because this is I didn't even talk to cheek about it. So when we're having our first meeting and she's like, she's trying to convince me that we should restart a podcast. I'm like, I also had the same notes. So you don't have to convince me. We're on the same page. But then the question there was, okay, what is the value that we're going to bring out? She's already spoken to, but I think from my perspective, it's I feel like there are a couple of things. We don't do a good job of documenting our stories as African people. And what then tends to happen is people that come and we make the same mistakes. So Sophie might have started something, learned from it, paid the school fees for it, but Sophie doesn't document her process. So then somebody else who wants to not go to the same thing will not come and make the same mistake. Sophie has made that stuff all the time. Like, what are we doing? Right. So the podcast allows us to document. Right. The second thing that I was saying that we don't really do a good job of is honoring people. Right. And I mean, so see while they're even around there, right, giving them their flowers. Right. And I think all across Africa, there have been people where the old new past in the past who are still alive, who are dead now, who I just never honored. Yeah. Right. Like they're forgotten with the signs of time. And I think for me, it was, how can this be a platform where we honor our guests? We show the world because this is a thing that I feel like it's an eternal thing. Yeah. Guys, sometimes there's an internet or lights or somewhere. It's always something to talk about. Yeah. Or maybe there's obviously we still have files. Some of the hundreds of years from now, I should be able to watch this and understand Sophie's story or understand how Sophie saw the world. And what was happening within our time is because think about it. Like, how much more beautiful would history be if we could actually talk to the people who had done things like an MLK. Yeah. Like you go, you watch an interview from him, like you understand his perspective, you maybe listen to a Malcolm X or you listen to who whoever is great in history, like a FDR, whoever it is, like a JFK or whatever, right? So for me, it's documentation, yeah, archiving, honoring, but also storytelling. Like I think people don't realize like a big part of America's advantage is their ability to storytelling. Yeah. Like if you even think about how you dream and how you imagine, sometimes like when we're kids, I would dream and imagine and whiteness, right? Like that's how I would imagine things. I was a superhero had to be white. If it's a this, it had to be white storytelling is very, very compelling. Right? So for us, it's like we really want the podcast to be something where when you look at it, when you listen to it, you feel pride in yourself when you come from and to remember it. And then other part of it, like she could mention, but we consumed a lot. I'm talking about we watched a ton of podcasts, right? And you do a lot of research and you say to yourself, like, okay, if you do one, like this is what we should do. This is what we shouldn't do. These are the disciplines we need to have. And you just study and do so much research so that you then understand that, you know, you know, a big part of the compliment that we get from people is people say we don't interrupt our guests. That's when watching a ton of podcasts and realizing how I feel is when people get interrupted and they're like, you know, they're making a point and you just interrupted them and you never came back to it, right? So for us, these are the like the things that led to, you know, us starting the podcast. And it's been such a beautiful journey. Like I was walking in LA, downtown, someone stopped me like, Oh, it's a podcast, you know, walking in different places, like you're seeing the impact. And a lot of times, like the impact isn't necessarily even financial. Yeah. It's just more of like you're seeing people response things and they're using the word resonance. Like it's resonates for me. This resonates for me. And it's funny because part of me comes to conclusion about why we should do a podcast, because she had our own feeling. The word resonance was big in there, right? So every time somebody uses that word, it's like, wow, you know, this is actually something that's mindful, you know. That's what I thought. And actually one last thing that I think is important to add is I also want people to know that in Africa and Nigeria, we can do a podcast that becomes a top podcast and it's not about gist. I know, I know me to I like gist, me to I like to laugh. I like to have those, you know, he ha ha moments, but I also feel like the compliments we get that really bring me joy. It's like, wow, finally, this is refreshing. It's not about gist. It's not about drama. It's just learning about other people and what they're doing and their frameworks. So I think for us, we're always saying, okay, how do we get gist? That's intelligence, you know, okay, an insider of what someone has built that you may have not known. This is the first time they're telling this. Yeah. That's how we think about it, but not in the way that most Nigerians are used to consume it. Do you think it's, we bring that up and I just remember you think of the fact that I don't think we see ourselves as people to aspire to be. Yeah. So like, I don't think as an Nigerian, maybe watching something, I don't think my first reaction is to watch another Nigerian who's doing well for themselves, because for me, the first image I gave someone who's doing well for themselves isn't someone who lives here is someone who lives in America or in the UK, like, see, Bartlett, because there are some brilliant folks in the world, but the only reason or way lights is touched on them is if they've been touched by the lights of the American media, Western media. I think about Trevor Noah, for example, Trevor is an intelligent, intelligent human who only rose to fame in some capacity and got some level of, you know, residents and whatever, because, I think of Chimamanda, and you know, how are speaking at TED, and then people be like, Oh, yeah, look, they acknowledged her. So that means we should acknowledge her too. I love that with your podcasts. It's more, it's less of what the West is looking at. And I see that it's not for people that are talking about. It's how you know the story you're trying to bring out, right? And so you're, you're waiting for the people to catch on. And I think that's, it feels like an intimate secret between everyone who watches the podcast of, I know what you can hate. The new this person was going to say some hot stuff. So you all just wait because episode is going to be crazy. You might not know this name on the screen. Yeah. After the end of a year, like, duh. I knew they had this inside. So I appreciate that too. It's so dope because I realized that that's actually what we've been doing, which is because people like, Oh, what's your process of having guests on? I'm like, no, understand that we have known these people quite a few of them for such a long time. These are, at least with people in our lives. These are those just where we're having in private. But you did, we didn't realize like these conversations are not like frameworks that other people understand. So even for die of example, bro, like the conversations we in die have had, like it was one of those things where you're like, I want people, you put it very well. It's almost like this person is brilliant. The world doesn't know, but yet our job is to use this platform to shine a light on it. And you will come to the same conclusions we've come to in our own private settings like this person, special, right? And I think for us, it's if we keep shining those lights on people, you keep tearing down like these myths and busting down these myths like your Africans are not able to do these things. So it's something I've really come to love, especially because you're telling these stories, you're unpacking a lot, you're also learning while you're doing it. And it's sometimes the evil shared things that we might not have known, right? But the beauty of it is just being able to show the world how you live. And now the world buys into your ability of curating and taste making and saying, okay, you know what? We trust that judgment on it because they've shown us that they actually know how to do this. And actually another layer to it is because people like yourself are watching our podcast. It's also so that you can come home, right? So you can see another creator or someone else who's writing or podcasting or whatever they're doing or acting. And you have a framework in your mind how I can do it, right? How I can build that business. And everyone we pick is not people that stolen government money. They're not stolen government money. They built this step by step brick by brick, right? So I feel like that's also the other reason why we pick the people we pick because we know people in America, we have a huge audience in the UK watching it as well and globally know like, okay, if I decide to come back to Nigeria, okay, for example, Simi Williams, okay, she runs a beyond fitness. If I want to run a gym, I now know who's episode I can listen to and at least understand her contacts and what she's done. And also interestingly enough, some of the guests we've interviewed had said that the Ivy League's the US don't have enough African case studies. Right? So I'm hoping that some of these stories will be picked up for case studies at Harvard and Stanford and MIT so that they also have that context as well. We had a cause we've been trending because she goes showing me our audio listenerships. If you go on this site and show you where your podcast is charting on and we were number two in entrepreneurship and Finland. So you're like, where do we know if Finland and what's going on over there? But we had one of our finished listeners like we shot us on Instagram and she's saying you don't understand like I've been looking for a podcast like this and it's because going back to your point where everything is so American centric, everything felt like everything starts to answer it. And so what does it look like to now have other stories that are coming out from other places in the world that gives us that we did can still learn from it doesn't have to because it never had to be black or white or Asian or or whatever it just has to be it's what this person's saying the truth and if it's the truth anyone can learn from it. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so what is some advice then you have for the next generation of Africans, what would you want us to remember? Okay, I'm going to take some words from our good friend, Lucy. It's the easiest time now to build an Africa, right? This is not the time to be shaky and be like, Oh, I don't know, you know, the rules and whatever. This is the time to build. Come on. I feel like Nigerians are looking for things or looking for services. I feel like they're looking for opportunities and they're looking to build with people. So I I encourage people in the diaspora that if you can come home, I understand. We got mortgages. We got we got a lot of debts. We got things that are holding us back for coming home. But even if you invest in someone that I get that question all the time, like, Oh, I have money. Who could I invest in? Maybe that's something we'll talk about more, but like just how to invest in people building businesses or build something here. This is the time to do it. Don't wait. You know, as you say I think about my university in Louisiana, they had a direct relationship with Oman and what they did was Oman students came to the university, study in the university and like they would go back home. And it wasn't like this was not a matter of like they wanted to stay in America and they were being forced to go back. This was a you could tell they just only were here to take from what they were learning and go back to implement it. And I think that's something that from the diaspora, especially as this discourse, I think just unfortunate about Nigerians and diaspora coming in and feeling like they're all high on mighty. They know everything. Of course, that's what we're talking about here. I mean the intentionality of I've seen things that work, right? Because they've taken from the great minds that most of people who have you even know are pouring it into this country because they have the systems that work. And now I feel like we're in that growth era. Independence was what 1960, right? 2025 now by 2060, we should not be where we are today. And what that means that we're in that pivotal time where folks who have traveled have gone, they've seen, they've jacquod, most of them are finished university now. They've probably finished college, they've built their couple of houses, their families, their kids are now ready to come home in some capacity. Now is the time for our generation to start looking at Africa, looking at Nigeria, looking at these things and saying, everything I have learned, how can I help build? And I love that. I mean, I just want to concur with everything you guys have said, right? Because I think for me, it's, you know, for the next generation is like keep having the audacity, keep walking into rooms like you deserve to be there, you don't need to explain why you're there, you don't need to feel like inferior to nobody. If it's something that we encourage people to do, it's like just honestly be sure about your authentic self, you can't compete, nobody can compete with you on being you, right? And also read books that remind you of who you are. I think that's another thing that I would really love to emphasize, like a big part of my own learning curve was reading really good books, that helped me develop mental models and frameworks and even understanding the game that was being played. Because I think that so many times, what I realize, even with this whole podcast thing, like these competitions, we're like coaches, we're having with our friends, with our investors, with our team members, with people, and you're thinking, this is normal, these are coaches that are normal, you're like, oh no, it's not normal. So all you're really doing is not taking the time and swallowing down to break it down for people. And hopefully, you know, a part of us being able to do that was reading books, right? Watching the shows, doing the research, nobody researches like Chica. Like, I mean, they gave her AI on top, it was all over. You know what I mean? So we really do a lot of deep research, you know, knowing your stuff and the other thing I was going to say, when I used to live in San Francisco, one of the reasons I justified being there for so long was, it doesn't matter who you were, if you were someone that was going to do something great in this life, you come to this city at some point, like it doesn't matter where it is, you eventually are playing where you eventually land here because this is a city where all great people come to eventually. Yeah. Now that I'm in Lagos, I feel the same way about Lagos. Like it's interesting, like in being here, I'm like, no, if you're going to be great at what you're doing, at some point, you will land in this city, right? So it's okay. I don't need to go looking for people. Eventually, they'll come to this city because this is the future. And I remember when I used to come back to Nigerian, that's December, it's like in 2011, 2012, they'll always feel like there was a portal you would go through and there'll be a delayed thing. So you might come to Nigerian, then you'd be seeing things and then it doesn't come to America. So like two years later or vice versa. I remember one of the things I realized in moving back because that was one of the worries I had about all some moving back, which is, are you disconnected from things? I've never been as connected. Like as soon as something happens in America, if it's happening in Nigeria, it's like you know what's happening at the exact moment. And I remember just being like, wow, like I don't feel disconnected at all. The same gist that you're seeing are the same sports or the same everything that's happening is happening in real time for everyone across the world who's actually tuned in. So you don't feel this sense of, oh, I'm out of the loop. I don't feel that out here. I think it's different. As you said, that makes me think of the fact that it's because in many ways, people aren't visiting to come back in the summer to then tell their families at home what's happening, right? Now it's like they're people saying, oh, I'm moving back to Nigeria. I'm coming in. Follow me as I tell you, come with me to travel to Nigeria to stay for five months. Come with me. There's this interconnectivity now that's happening in a way that's never happened before. That's why I think it's so, so ripe. The conversation you're having. I love it for quality. I love the podcast. I love everything you guys do. And I especially love the fact that both of you are together and not once in this conversation. Did it feel like it didn't respect what you were saying and vice versa? It feels like in a lot of ways, partnership is so important because it's just so special. So we're going to close out the podcast. You know, when I tell you there's so many questions that could have asked, there's so much what I wanted. So I do a part two sometime in the future where we'll talk as well. It's our first one. It's our first one. Exactly. So I want you guys separately to look into the karma directly and you're going to hype yourself up, which is what I like to do. Yeah, so you could start with, am I too loud if and you can say whatever the fudge you want? You can say, am I solidified? I am the best. I built this. I am this is whatever version you want to say, whatever route you want to go. Feel free to do that. It's funny because I don't know if I'm ever put in a spotlight like this. So am I too loud that I'm soft, that I'm feminine, that I'm the best writer and I'm putting it into existence a New York time bestseller, right? Am I too loud that I'm too Nigerian, right? And am I too loud that I love heart? I love that. I'm Asian. I'm going to do one. You have to do it. I'm right. I don't want. Okay. I'm I too loud that I'm a black man. I'm I too loud that I'm a man who's in his own power. I'm I too loud that I'm a frequency holder. I'm I too loud that I'm somebody who moves from emotional clarity. I like that. They're not too loud at all. Peri and but thank you, guys, so much for coming on the podcast. I'm going to be an alpha polysense podcast guys. Yes. Yes. I'm so I don't know why they were you're going to ask me. They said we search you did. We go to the same thing. We go to a real deal. No, but I also want to point to you before we leave like Sophie like I am so proud of you. Like I like I've known you separately like when she goes. The thing is I was telling she could like you're probably the only person who could have access to come to this podcast and we're like, I sure will do it because you're like the growth. Anything is you make it look so easy. I and for those of us who work hard, you know, it's never easy. No matter how somebody looks into it. So I'm really, really proud of you. I have seen how you have evolved over the time. So I want to point to you like keep going like that people like you said, just let people know you have some real things behind you like if it comes for you like they're going to have to come for the entire tribe you know. So now you're everyone. Thank you for having us. Oh, thank you guys for being here guys. Don't forget to follow our products and the podcast on every platform. Also follow H&A separate for socials. I'm going to put in description. Go check out my episode with them. I have no anyone who's going to come out. They have 25 episodes on deck. Okay guys. So when it comes out, I'll let you guys know, but I adore you both. Thank you for being here and I'll see you guys in the next podcast episode. Bye!