Encomium
Since his successful cancer (lymphoma) surgery in late 2013 at Platinum Medical Centre, Wellington, London, Nwachukwu Ozioko, popularly known as Vast and his partner, Obumneme Ali (Smash) have been working hard to stage a comeback but the new waves of change in the industry have not made that easy for the duo, who go by the name Bracket.
Although, they dropped hit singles, such as International Baby, Temperature, Mama Africa and Nana, it didn’t get much hype, especially in the South West, Nigeria. Yet, the Yori Yori crooners believe that with their new single, Alive, featuring Tiwa Savage and Tanzanian singer, Diamond, 2015 will be a great year for them.
In this exclusive interview with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Saturday, January 10, 2015, somewhere at Victoria Island, Lagos, Bracket spoke about their career, cancer experience and plans to get married. Interestingly, despite the fact that they have many things in common, yet they have different views about the most greatest fear.
For Vast, who just narrowly escaped death, his great fear, of course is death! While Smash believes his greatest fear is failure.
SMASH: My greatest fear is failure. That’s the truth. Imagine people seeing you on television regularly, your songs are being played everywhere, they believe you’re making money without knowing that you’re still performing free show. They think you’re big. Suddenly, the person promoting your music stops doing that, and those people listening to your music start seeing you trekking. How will you feel? It’s enough to trigger suicide. That’s why I pray we keep on succeeding.
VAST: for me, what I fear most is death, because a wise man sees failure as progress. For a wise man, failure will teach him a lot, and you can still make it, that’s if you’re alive. If God spares your life, you’ll do great things. You’re (referring to ENCOMIUM Correspondent) important to some people and I’m sure they won’t pray you die now. That’s why I fear death. I don’t want it to come now.
What exactly are you guys working on right now?
SMASH: We are working on our project called Bracket Cancer Foundation. It’s an idea we conceived shortly after Vast survived cancer. We want to help people with cancer; at least pay their bills, even if they didn’t survive it, we want to help them to stay alive. That’s the reason we dropped a song called Alive featuring Diamond and Tiwa Savage. It was premiered today (Saturday) and the video was shot in South Africa. We were in America when the inspiration came. That’s exactly what we are working on right now.
Base on our assessment of your performances, it seems Bracket didn’t do much last year…
VAST: Last year? We tried our best. We dropped some beautiful songs, but we didn’t get much audience, probably because of the emergence of fresh artistes. People pay attention to these young artistes more than the old ones. I remember we did a song called International Baby. While Vast was in the hospital, we shot a song called Temperature. Later, we did another one called Nana. These are great songs, I’m sure if I play it now, you’ll remember the song.
But these songs weren’t that popular…
VAST: Yes, maybe in Lagos, but I’m sure they are popular in the East, and outside Nigeria. We’re more popular in the East and some African countries. We are working towards getting more attention from our Lagos fans this year because we have what it takes to win their heart again, like we did when we dropped Yori Yori. Apart from songs like Nana, International Baby, we have more singles to release before we finally drop our album sometimes in April.
There is a new trend in music right now. We have songs that glorify premarital sex, bum bum, etc. These are the songs making waves now, do you see yourself switching to that?
SMASH: (Smiles). I like that idea, we’ll follow the trend but not exactly what they have done. We’ll do something unique, but we don’t want to glorify bad things. We don’t want to show naked women and all that. But we’ll do something they’ll like and appreciate.
Vast, has the whole cancer issue been taken care of?
Yes, it has been totally cured but like what the doctors told me, I still need to be calling at the hospital for five years. I have done that for more than a year now, I go every four months, and this will be done for five years. After that and they don’t see any tumour coming again, it’s totally gone. But, for now, I thank God, there is no threat to my life.
I remember that you said doctors warned you not to have sex for five months. It’s more than a year now, have you started having sex?
VAST: Smiles. I have gone to for sperm check, I’m okay. The essence of not having sex is to ensure that I don’t give birth to abnormal baby. Because if I impregnate a lady in that condition, she might give birth to such a baby, and of course, I don’t want that to happen. That was why I was instructed to stay away from sex for five months.
Have you resumed sex now?
VAST: I’m ready to resume (smiles). Interestingly, white people are smart. They know I’m a man capable of getting married when it’s time. Before they started the treatment, they took some sperm from me for safe keeping in case the treatment damages my sperm. I will still be able to have children, but nothing bad happened. It didn’t affect anything. I’m free to have sex and impregnate my lady when the time comes. Apart from being alive, that is also a good news for me.
During his trying period, were you thinking of going solo?
SMASH: No. Never. The only thing on my mind was what to tell his parents. How do I even stand his mom. We didn’t know how to tell people that it was a cancer. Incidentally, it was the same period we lost Goldie. I was afraid, praying to God to preserve his life. In fact, we heard about a cancer patient who died the day we wanted to begin treatment. It was a difficult period for us. It was not going to be the best idea to leave him at that point.
There is a story that you guys are gay. Can you react to that?
SMASH: Na wa ooo. (smiles) I no wan talk about this gay tinz for public. I saw the story. I didn’t take it serious until my cousin, who is based in Enugu, called my attention to the danger the rumour might caused us. To clear the air, we are not gay. However, if they don’t believe us, they’ll see us getting married soon.
VAST: It was very funny and at the same time, wicked. Close friends and family members know that we are not and we can never be. In fact, during my cancer saga, I had a girlfriend in America. We were so much in love. She was a student and also doing some part-time jobs. She was earning a little, like 10 dollar per hour. I didn’t want her to stress herself all the way from London. So, we had that understanding.
Was she afraid you were going to die?
VAST: I can’t really say if she was because we were not together.
Are you guys in a relationship now?
SMASH: As proper Igbo man, there are things expected of me before getting married…
Can you tell us what it is?
SMASH: Every Igbo man knows (smiles). You can ask your igbo friends. So, if I’m able to have it, I will look for someone to marry.
You’ll look for or you already have somebody?
SMASH: I will look for. No one yet in my life.
VAST: As for me, very soon. But you have to go with me to Ethiopia. That’s where she’s from.
Considering the cost of treating cancer. How do you intend to finance your project?
SMASH: We want to organize a very big concert. We’ll likely start from our state, Enugu before moving to Lagos. We’ll get a lot of artistes involved and whatever we raise, we’ll start from there. There are stages in cancer treatments, depending on the stage; some might need N1 million, N2 million and more. We should be able to start with that. We’re hopeful that if the PDP gubernatorial candidate of our state (Enugu) wins, it will be to our advantage, because he’s a good man and philanthropist. We believe in his philosophy and we pray he wins. Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is someone that can support our foundation.
When is this concert coming up?
SMASH: By God’s grace, April. But before then, we’re going to drop some singles. We’re very sure that our fans, particularly in Lagos we love the songs. We’re also planning to drop the remix of Nana, but yet to conclude on the choice of artiste for collaboration. We have another song, Alive with Tiwa Savage and Diamond, I’m sure you’ll like it.
