In the early years of my childhood, I cried with Brenda Fassie. I sashayed to Prince Nico Mbarga. I swaggered to Mad Melon and Mountain Black, and countless nights, I was lulled by the voices of Westlife. These are the songs that accompany my reminiscences of those years of blissful innocence.

There was always music. Either from the Binatone cassette player in our living room, or blaring from the neighbouring houses occupied by university students. Even the poignant memories are punctuated by music. One evening, Daddy was being chased by plainclothes policemen as Tuface carried on unperturbedly, eulogizing his “African Queen.” I cannot now hear that song without thinking of that day, the day we knew Daddy would have excelled in track and field had he had the opportunity. Jodi Picoult was right when she wrote that “music is the language of memory.”

***

Ten years ago, I was a teenager and Mummy’s taste in music was lame, and annoying. And even more so because she used to play them at full blast. You could be revelling in your favourite sound, and be rudely interrupted by the opening chords of Fabomo’s guitar. She would sing along in the highest pitch her untrained mezzo-soprano could afford. Daddy seemed immune to irritation. He would noiselessly tap his fingers to the rhythm of the music. The music of a youthful time as a hotel manager, when he commanded the gaze of many pencilled eyes. He bought one of Eric Donaldson’s albums, and for weeks, I had to endure such vexation it nearly brought me to tears every time the music blared from our DVD player. Much to my displeasure, I subconsciously absorbed the lyrics of “Land of My Birth.”

I couldn’t understand Mummy’s fixation with such music, but some things start to make sense when you are no longer the youngest person in the room. She got a mobile phone. The disturbance didn’t stop, but it became bearable. My older sister, who was my comrade, dared to change her ringtone to MAGIC’s “Rude,” and later, “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran without meeting any resistance. These days, those guitar chords, those lyrics, are my vehicle to Mummy’s last years.

***

Only Westlife’s tracks have stood the test of time for me. Through childhood when I would give hoarse renditions of their songs with incongruent lyrics, to the adolescent years of discovering the correct lyrics for myself. And even now, whenever I revisit their early albums from 1999-2001, I feel as though I’m stepping back into the bedroom where my sister and I sang ourselves to sleep. When there were still five singers in the group, my four siblings and I each had a favourite, mine was Mark Feehily. In futile attempts to sound like him, I remember making the most ridiculous facial contortions. It is all cringy now, but his voice – singing of love “through fire and flame” – remains etched in my memory.

Recently, I sometimes catch myself humming Mummy’s lame music. I even created a playlist on Spotify, Fabomo’s Itenedo, Osaro Nomayo’s Oviyemwen (which is a heartfelt extollation of motherhood). My teenage self would shake her head in incredulity. Maybe not… for she did not have to remember her mother through music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash