Young Obasi Joseph (Cruise with Joe), Kingsley Okoye Rex, and David Nwobodo (Barzini) sit with host of #WithChude, Chude Jideonwo to commemorate the World Igbo Day. On this episode, they shared their processes and how they found their calling.
“Several times, I have gone viral and there is no trace or platform for people to get more. My friends were so proud that they insisted that I get a page for it, and that was how it started.” Cruise with Joe shared the moment his first video went viral while he was trying to promote his food business. “I posted the video on my WhatsApp status, and somebody said ‘send’, and before evening I realized that I had sent it to almost all my customers and it was everywhere. They started sending me links to Tunde Ednut and other blogs that posted it. So, I just had to expand. At some point, I was struggling because I was wondering what they loved the most, was it the dialect because I felt I was not giving the dialect the way I knew it? Because I know the dialect so much because I live there. I now realised that there is something called personality. It was not just the dialect, there is personality, there is humour and there is how you think”.
Barzini shares about how he was depressed. “People who have this up-tempo vibe are mostly the ones who fall victim to that kind of thing, especially when they are much younger. This happened a while back, so I am good now”. On why it is so, he said, “I am still trying to discover the answer, but for some of us with troubled childhood, we grow up with this large sense of self. It makes you project your personality outward into the world, it is for validation to make up for something that you feel like you are lacking. You are happier when others are happy, you are feeding off other people’s energy. At some point, it gets too much, my boss calls it burning candles on both ends. At some point, you will burn out. I feel really concerned for some people especially in Nigeria where mental health is not really talked about. There are a lot of people living with ADHD, if you have information about this thing you will live with it better. You are more informed about when you need to step aside.”
Kingsley Okoye Rex spoke about his journey into acting, “I got into the industry as an actor at a very young age where I didn’t know my left for my right. I just wanted to be there; I knew I was meant for this. I was 15 at that time. People who are working behind the scenes, the majority came in as actors. There and then, I knew that it was not where God wants me to be. I wanted to be in a position where I could say something and be listened to, where my voice counts. Because there were things, I thought were wrong with the industry as far back as 2005. It will take a lot of work and journey to get to the point where I will become a star actor and I will say, ‘do this’, and my opinion will count that was how I found myself in filmmaking and I found my talent and my calling there”.
Watch the excerpt, here.
