Beibee’s Ben…poetry. prose. diaries.

Essayist, prose stylist, book reviewer and poet, Toni Kan works as Head Corporate Communications of Visafone. He will be presenting two of his recent books to the public at Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage, Victoria Island, by Saturday April 18, 2009. He has been ‘accused’ severally of being too ‘feminine friendly’ in his writing style though he tried to defend it. Most writers know him as a romance writer. Author of the critically acclaimed and some say, erotically charged collection of short stories, ‘Nights of The Creaking Bed’ and the new poetry collection ‘Songs of Absence and Despair,’ all published by Cassava Republic Press tells Yemi Adebisi in this interview, about the sounds and songs that have become the background to his life as a writer and lover of music. Excerpts:

What was the first song you remember liking?

My parents had lots of records back in the day. I remember my mother on Saturday mornings, cleaning the house and singing along to Bob Marley or Andy Kim or Skeeter Davis or Boney M or ABBA. My dad, even though he bought all the records, was partial to the blues and R&B and Soul. I remember Commodores, Isaac Hayes, Hot Chocolate and many others. There were also Nigerian albums from groups like Blo, Ofege, and others. Hot Chocolate, I remember because of the album cover even though I am not sure I ever listened to any of their tracks. I remember an album by this blind guy, Clarence Carter or something, singing: “I was caught, making love, to another man’s wife.” It was illicit and forbidden and sweet and I think I found it more forbidding than Sexual Healing, which caused a lot of hoopla when I was about 10. What I couldn’t get past was a blind man getting it on with another man’s wife. I remember sitting and wondering what would happen if the woman’s husband caught them. How would he escape? I think that was how I began to exercise my imagination. I remember my father’s colleague, a principal throwing his daughter’s stuff out of the house after he came back home and caught her listening to Sexual Healing. Times have changed you know. Now, kids listen to songs like I wanna sex you up and no one cares.

What song made the most impact on you as a young boy, developing a literary consciousness?

The song that hit me the most and thinking back now, I suppose I was already forging a literary consciousness even back then, was Skeeter Davis’ Dear John and End of the World. I liked the melancholy and heartfelt sadness the songs evoked. Dear John was particularly so because of the sadness in the singers voice as she wrote to her lover telling him of the end of their relationship. I was seven or eight, but I knew that there was heartbreak waiting. Tell me why you won’t get caught by a song that says “Don’t they know it’s the end of the world ‘cos you don’t love me any more.”

I guess I have always liked songs/books/movies that touch the heart. Then there were also cuts like Let it be me a duet between Skeeter Davis and somebody I can’t recall. Then there was also another track I liked I’m a lover, not a fighter.

It’s funny how I recall country music songs because if you had asked me like an hour ago whether I liked country music, I would have said no.

I think I also liked Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers especially Kenny’s song about a gambler. But the one that killed me dead each time I heard it (and still does today) was Islands in the stream a duet between Dolly and Kenny.

There was this album by a Nigerian musician. I can’t recall his name now but he had a song that went something like this: “yesterday, kisses and today quarrels, mixed feelings, ye ye killing suspense.”

What was the first cassette or album or CD you ever bought and what did it teach you as a writer?

The first cassette I remember buying was a Yellowman cassette. Back in secondary school in the late 80s, Yellowman was a big deal and I think that was the first cassette I ever bought. I remember songs like Jamaica Nice, London Cold and stuff.

What did it teach me as a writer? I remember Yellowman liked to make lots of rhymes, you know, end rhymes. I don’t remember anything apart from that. I don’t think reggae acts speak good English.

You write a lot about love, in fact many people still see you as a romance writer. What song was playing when you first fell in love, something like a soundtrack to your first love?

I don’t remember this because I am a hopeless romantic. I fall in love at the drop of a hat and I generally do not have a logical reason. It is for me like Eliot wrote: “Is it perfume from a dress/that makes me so digress.” I could fall in love with a girl for wearing a white top over black slacks or for licking ice cream with her head bent. But I remember the song that was playing the day I had my first kiss. We had gone to visit a lady who just had a child. When we got there, the new mother was eating and said we should go see the baby in her room. The girl and I was, who technically wasn’t my girlfriend, bent and kissed the girl on her forehead then we looked at each other, smiled and kissed. She was older and she taught me. Bobby Brown’s Ronnie was playing.

What song do you listen to when you are writing?

I was writing my book Nights of the Creaking Bed. It was a long process but because a couple of them were written while I was on fellowship in Germany in 2003, I remember listening to Seal over and over as I wrote my novella Ballad of Rage and then the short stories. I recall songs like Heavenly from the Seal IV album. I think that’s his best work yet.

On a good day, when I’m writing, I’d be listening to jazz or classical music. My favourite writing sound is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Maik Nwosu gave me the CD in 2003 or 2004; I am not so sure. Then I could also be listening to Enya or Arturo Sandoval or some jazz standards. I’ve got CDs with different artistes on them.

What are your plans for your twin launch?

I’ll be presenting the books: Nights of the Creaking Bed, a collection of fourteen short stories and Songs of Absence and Despair, a collection of poems published by the Cassava Republic Press.

The short story collection has been described by Molara Wood, Assistant Managing Editor, Arts & Culture at Next as “a cohesive and stylish collection, with atmospheric scenes and noir elements” while novelist Sefi Atta and author of Everything Good Will Come has described the work as one that begins with “deliberate brevity and ends on a note of lush lyricism.”

Publisher and columnist, Toyin Akinosho says the short stories “are so well written, in clean, and elegant prose. If there’s anything the book can teach it is English Grammar.”

The book of 33 poems which were collected over a period of time beginning in 2004 is a lyrically evocative and almost funereal collection which focuses on the twin themes of absence and despair, two issues that have come to define the present generation of Nigerians who have been forced by the imperatives of survival to dwell abroad or in separate cities; men and women forced to survive on a heady cocktail of regret, nostalgia and memories. The event will feature poetry, comedy and live music.

Finally, you write a lot about Lagos. If you were to suggest a soundtrack for Lagos what would it be?

That’s a simple one. Fela already gave us the soundtrack to Lagos: Confusion breaki bone o, ye pa!