Mo'cheddah speaks with Samod Biobaku

My encounter with a lesbian – Mocheddah

By Samod Biobaku

sixthsense34@yahoo.com

If a widely-traveled social scientist was ever in need of having a long conversation with a gorgeous young lady constantly bursting at the seams with enough talent and adrenalin to sustain three life spans, then without batting an eyelid, delectable singer and Nigerian-based entertainer, Ola Modupe a. k. a Mocheddah would instantly fit the bill.

Presently in her 3^rd year at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where she studies Creative Arts, Mocheddah raps, dances, sings and is always eager to explore new grounds.

Given her appetite for adventures and trying out new thing, many would naturally expect her to have tons of experiences and moments in her memory bank and she didn’t disappoint when she recently revealed in an interview with National LIFE, how she was once cornered by a lesbian and how she eventually wriggled her way out of the sexually-deviant situation. “Yes! I was walking down the road and a girl just stopped me and said ‘Hi.’ She said I looked pretty and I thanked her for the compliment. All of a sudden, she began telling me that she doesn’t stay far from where we met. I didn’t suspect anything and even told her I didn’t stay far away either. She suddenly began telling me she likes me and other sweet things and that’s when the alarm bells started to ring in my head. I was just 15 years old back then. I wasn’t scared but I was shocked and I just took off before she went further with her sweet yarns.”

Mocheddah who hails from Osun State also spoke about her career, her 7-year-old affinity with popular entertainment outfit, record label and music group, ‘Knight House,’ her singles and how she survived her early tom-boy tendencies.

At a time when grown men and women still work hard and pray harder to find and latch onto a reputable record label, Mocheddah had everything going for her when she was just 12 years old. “I think my career started in front of the mirror. I loved standing in front of the mirror and I would just stand there and practice a lot of dance steps as I saw them in musical videos. I loved music and I always grasped things easily and then I met Knight House (which consists of Aderogba, Temi Gomez, Lanre Oladimeji, Sabre and there’s our new intern. He’s been with us for over a year now and then there’s Mocheddah) at a very young age, which was a good thing. I met them when I was 12 years old. I became their baby sister and they started grooming me. I think that was when I mastered the art of doing everything because as young as I was, I would listen to rap music.”

As pretty as she is, Mocheddah appeared to have a sprinkle of the ‘tom-boy personality’ within her and this much she affirmed when she narrated how her brother initiated her into the world of a tom-boy and how her fondness for her brother further unveiled the boy in her.

“I became a tom boy because my brother was always with me. I’m the fourth of five children. I have an elder sister, another sister then a brother, then me, then my younger sister. I was very close to my brother and he always had a lot of guy friends around and for some strange reason, I was attached to my brother. My sisters were too busy trying to look beautiful but my brother was always there for me. He used to use me to practice wrestling moves. He was obsessed with wrestling. I was always a victim of all the deadly wrestling moves; like the Figure 4 leglock, Didity, Piledrivers, submission holds and many other finishing moves and he used to use me for all these moves. I was his playmate and I used to hang out a lot with him and his friends. Before I knew it, I became a tom boy. My brother was a big rap fan. He loved P Diddy and I wanted to impress him kind of. I dressed, talked, walked and felt like a boy. I was strong. I used to climb things.

I was a tom boy for years. I would wear my face cap, baggy jeans and even sag. I was a bully. I was terrible because I was a big time tom boy and then later, I started liking boys and all that. I went into the Beyonce thing and I got girly. I also used to do a lot of role-playing like the different celebrities that I watched. I would do P Diddy today, BIG the next day and Destiny child the day after. I even used to dress like them and work on their moves in front of the mirror.”

With a reputation that smacked of fights, one begins to wonder if Mocheddah ever went as far as beating boys and she responded to the question when she said, “Ah! I said I was a bully to the core. There was nobody I couldn’t beat in school. I was too strong for my peers and most of them just avoided me because I beat everybody. I even did Taekwondo for a while. When I fought back then, I didn’t fight the way girls fight dragging and pulling each other. I used to punch and kick with unbelievable precision and force.”

Her life as a tom-boy however drew to an end when she was 13 years old. “It ended when I was 13 years old. I became a girl but I still had those tom boy traits buried deep within me. I still had the ‘Look at me before you talk - Are you okay?’ kind of attitude. The girl in me eventually came out and I became a girlie girl. I had friends that were girly as well. I started liking boys too. However, till date, I’m not a conventional girl. I’m very blunt.”

Interestingly, she was nominated at the 2010 Hip Hop World Awards and she expressed her excitement at the feat. “It was a good thing. We didn’t win. I wanted us to win but we didn’t win but it didn’t really change anything anyway because having a nomination at the biggest music award in Nigeria was huge. To be nominated along was an achievement. Anybody would have won.

Is Mocheddah in a relationship at the moment? “Naaah! I don’t like talking about that. I’ll rather keep that under wraps.”

She worked with Otelo of Knight House for her single, ‘If You Want Me,’ which was dropped in September 2009 and has been receiving massive airplay and she talks about the song and others. “The song is about you not changing people; not changing your friends, you not changing your family, you not changing who you love, you not changing your boyfriend. That’s my belief. I dropped ‘Uncensored’ but I didn’t drop it officially. I also dropped ‘Shampoo’ with Chuddy K. For my album, I’m working with just two people. I’m working with Willy Band and Chuddy K. I didn’t want to work with a lot of people on the album because I want it to be all about me. I’m saving all the collaborations for the next album. Right now, I want to show people who Mocheddah is.”

She also gave thumbs up to Ashionye and the rest of the Girl Power team for being gentle with her and teaching her so much even in such a short time. “Ashionye and the others were all mothers to me. We were camped and we never ran out of things to do and I learnt so much. The stages we used were world class. There was a band. Most of all, it was fun. Nyore, Nikky Laoye, Ashionye and Bibi taught me so many things. I learnt too much; even how to use the microphone. I went o different places; Benin, Ibadan and related with different people. They were open with me and they all loved me deeply and I equally loved them deeply. It was a wonderful event and I hope we do it again.”