From Greatness Too Is Meant for You, an unpublished 2014 manuscript by Adetimilehin Inioluwa Victor (Vic’Adex). Lightly edited for grammar while preserving the original voice.

Have you ever been to a village?
Where the dancing brooms
Make art on the sandy shores
Of even the peasant house?

Aye aye captain!
Come to Africa
Where the rhythm taunts
Of Bata will make you
Dance more than the stepping
Of Waltz or Salsa fame.

Where Gangan talks,
The drum insults or advises,
Praises or accuses,
Supports or challenges
Those that have an ear.

Have you ever drank palm wine
Under the foliage of
Bamboo sticks
Thatched with palm leaves
That drives old men to youthful days?

Have you taken the gnawing meat
Of okere or oya,
Boiled or roasted
Like the suya of a Hausa Mallam?
You will forget the boring tales
Of your barbecue grill.

Where the aged oak tree houses
Tales by the moonlight,
Birds chirp at twilight,
And fair games at last light.

Of beautiful daughters and mothers,
You’ll be smitten by the soft dimples,
Be mesmerized by alluring tooth gaps,
Where nature is wild and yet simple,
Of courteous and loving people,
Those who came here always came back,
Where hospitality is never in lack,
Culture and ethics not yet crippled.

Bata: an African drum. Gangan: Yoruba for talking drum. Okere and oya: grass cutter. Suya: roasted meat sold by the roadside in many Nigerian metro cities.

Editor’s note: First drafted in the early Vic’Adex voice and preserved here as part of the Words on Rampage archive.