ABOUT AFRICAN CHINA:'African
China has something to do with
my original name, Chinagoro,'
he muted, adding, 'from
Chinagoro comes China. When I
was in the secondary school,
my friends used to pronounce
my name, China-Goro. So, each
time I entered the classroom,
my classmates would start
laughing at me and my class
teacher
more

ABOUT AFRICAN CHINA:'African
China has something to do with
my original name, Chinagoro,'
he muted, adding, 'from
Chinagoro comes China. When I
was in the secondary school,
my friends used to pronounce
my name, China-Goro. So, each
time I entered the classroom,
my classmates would start
laughing at me and my class
teacher then, would mute, O
da-bi omo China (meaning, he
looks like a Chinese
boy).''From there onwards, I
was nicknamed African-China.
Though, while in secondary
school, I used to get annoyed
quickly and sometimes, react
negatively but when I
discovered that I could not
help it, I became used to the
name and consequently accepted
it as a part of me.'He also
recalled that the need to
identify with his root,
especially when he wanted to
go into music properly,
altogether necessitated his
deliberate desire to attach
'African' to his name. He
reminisced: 'When I decided to
go into music, I did not want
to be identified with the
name, China alone, because I
did not come from any of the
Asian countries, I rather had
the desire to make my name
sound more African than Asian,
because of the fact that I am
a black man. That was how the
name, African China came
about.'Notwithstanding,
positing that Chinagoro's
songs remain not only a
product of the environment in
which he grew up as a child,
but also, that of his years of
suffering as a son-of-a
man-of- no-means and someone
who never knew who his
biological mother was, is not
to imagine the absurd.
Chinagoro, from childhood was
a product of society and one
who was equally meant to learn
to survive in a hard way. At
less than two months of birth,
his mother died to usher him
into the world without a
guide, governed by
misadventure, greed,
wickedness, materialism and
oppression of the have-nots by
the haves.Emotionally, he
recalls, 'my mother died when
I was two months old. I did
not enjoy the cares of my
mother. When I eventually
finished my secondary school
in 1996, there was nobody to
assist me in furthering my
education. My father then was
retired from the Federal
Ministry of Works and Housing
and his pension was not enough
to cater for seven of us in
our family. So, I found myself
working at the Nigeria Ports
Authority as a laborer,
carrying bags of rice and ice
fish after my SSCE
examinations.''I also hawked
on the streets, worked as a
cleaner and had to quit my
menial job just to build a
solid foundation for my
future. The government, I must
say, has no vision for the
youths of this country. That
is why crime is still on the
increase in the country
today,' he asserted. Chinagoro
recalled how his experience
after the release of his
maiden album with track, 'If I
say O.P and you say C, na you
sa bi..' brought him in direct
confrontation with the deadly
group and the area boys known
as Agberos, in Lagos who
wanted him either dead or
alive, helped to fire his
imagination and his musical
idiom.African China is a Blue
Pie artist. African China is
available digitally throughout
the world on Blue Pie
Productions and at all leading
digital retailers on the
planet. See bluepie.au and
African China's My Space site
myspace/africanchinang

Category Comedy

Tags African, China, Crisis