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No one rules forever on the throne of time.

This episode contains strong language and graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

STORIES
“The Black Ties”: In high school, Lupita pushes back against an archaic rule with a secret weapon.

Original score by Cheflee.

“The Holy Holies”: Odinaka departs Atlanta for boarding school in Nigeria, where he clashes with the upperclassmen. Enter divine intervention in the form of “The Catholic Executives.”

Thank you Odinaka Ezeokoli for sharing your story, and Stuti Sharma for joining him in the studio!

Written by Odinaka Ezeokoli and produced by John Fecile. Original score by Ehiorobo.

Original Mind Your Own theme song by Sandra Lawson-Ndu AKA Sandu Ndu x Peachcurls ft. Ehiorobo. This episode also featured the song Blessed by Kiddo CSA ft. BlaqBonez.

Executive Producers: Glynn Washington and Mark Ristich
Managing Editor: Regina Bediako
Director of Production: Marisa Dodge
Series Producers: David Exumé and Priscilla Alabi
Music Supervisor: Sandra Lawson-Ndu
Story Scouts: Ashley Okwuosa, Fiona Nyong’o, Jessica Kariisa, Lesedi Oluko Moche
Editors: Nancy López and Anna Sussman
Engineering: Miles Lassi
Operations Manager: Florene Wiley
Story Consultant: John Fecile
Graphic Design: Jemimah Ekeh
Original Artwork: Mateus Sithole
Special Thanks: Allan Coye, Jake Kleinberg, Samara Still, Sarah Yoo, Warner Music Group, and Afripods

Mind Your Own is a production of KQED’s Snap Studios, with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media. Hosted and produced by Lupita Nyong’o.

Snap Studios is home to the Snap Judgment and Spooked podcasts.

Transcripts

MIND YOUR OWN TRANSCRIPT

EP 9: SCHOOL DAZE

Lupita: This episode contains strong language and graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

[Mind Your Own theme song]

Lupita: I’m Lupita Nyong’o, and this is Mind Your Own. Today, we’re going to find ourselves at school. You know, that time when you’re both trying to fit in but also stand out? 

When I was young, rules were a thing I tended to test. Let me tell you how it went down. 

[intriguing music]

So, for my final years of high school, I went to St. Mary’s School, Nairobi, an all-boys school. It’s 700 boys in the school and about 60 girls in the IB program. I attended that program. There were leaders. These leaders were distinguished by a black tie. The rest of the students, the girls would wear peacock blue, so that’s what we call them, black ties. Did I want to be a black tie? You know, low key. I think I did want to be a black tie, because you got your own office. I think they could use, like, maybe the staff bathroom or something like that. They had these privileges. They were almost above the rules. They were akin to the faculty. 

It’s the day when the black ties are being announced. Names get called. People get clapped for, they get taken away. The next day, they are in black. I mean, it was dramatic, and immediately, there’s a status shift. People you used to just joke around with. Now all of a sudden, they have a power over you. They can give you detention. They can make you come to school on Saturday. They can tell on you. You can get expelled because of intel that they might give away. 

We had our lockers in the girls’ bathroom. It was a place where we congregated. It was a place for privacy. It was a place to talk about your period, you know what I mean, things that the 700 boys out there would not understand or care for. It was our safe space. So, when you walk into the locker rooms and there are black ties present, something’s going on. Black ties in the locker room with the civilians, it’s uneasy in there. 

I witness one of my classmates being called aside by one of the black ties, and they’re whispering in the corner. The next thing I know, the girl is crying. I’m like, “What’s happening here?” So, of course, I go to inquire. So, the black ties, they decided to bring up an old rule that was written when the school was attended by our white colonizers. “Your hair can’t be longer than your shoulders and you can’t dye your hair blonde or red.” Oh, “no makeup” either. And all these really archaic rules. 

I was furious about this no makeup rule. I didn’t care for makeup, but there were girls that did, and they were really harassed. 

My two best friends wore makeup. My homegirls, my ride-or-dies were now being targeted. The black ties, they were there inspecting everybody’s faces before we went to class. And girls who wore makeup were crying. Why? There were so many other things going on. I remember one time, I was walking up some stairs, and these boys who could not have been older than like 11 or 12 grabbed my behind and ran away. And why wasn’t anyone talking about those kinds of things? Sexual harassment that was happening on a daily basis, why weren’t we discussing that? Instead, we’re discussing makeup? It just seemed really lopsided and irrelevant. 

I did go to like a black tie one on one to say, “Yo, why is this happening?” And her answer had been very callous. “It’s a rule, and my job is to enforce the rules.” So, I said, “Oh, okay.” I decided to stress test the boundaries of the rules. 

I had dye from my time in Mexico, and I dyed my hair blue. You could not find blue hair in Kenya at that time. I went to the salon with my hair dye, the bleaching process– I didn’t bleach it all the way, so my hair didn’t lose all its color. And then he put the blue dye on top of it. It wasn’t the cutest blue. It kind of was seaweed-like blue-green. It was not an editorial look. It was a rebellion look. 

I remember the head teacher coming. He was this British guy and he goes, “Lupita, Lupita, your hair’s blue.” And I said, “Yes.” “You’re in school. You can’t have blue hair.” And I was like, “That’s not what the rulebook says. It says blonde or red, my hair is blue.” And he was like [stammers] [laughs] and off I went with my blue hair. 

And nobody could say anything because it wasn’t in that silly rulebook of theirs. 

[upbeat music]

Odinaka: I’ll tell you guys a little bit about myself. My full name is Odinakachukwu Ezeokoli. My parents’ names are Ben and Monica. 

[laughter] 

Lupita: Our next story comes from comedian Odinaka Ezeokoli. 

Odinaka: Yo. 

Stuti: Hey, what’s up? 

Odinaka: Hey, what’s going on? How you doing? 

Stuti: Good to see you. 

Lupita: To help him tell the story, we got him in the studio with his friend and fellow comic, Stuti Sharma, who was raised religious in Kenya. 

Stuti: I used to put on plays for my family. One time on Easter, we taped me to the wall to be Jesus. 

Odinaka: With duct tape?

Stuti: Yeah, with duct tape. 

Lupita: We wanted to have Stuti in the room while Odinaka told this one about how he went from the suburbs of Atlanta to hearing the voice of God in rural Nigeria. 

I hope you’re listening. 

Stuti: So, how did you end up in Nigeria, because you were born in the US, right? 

Odinaka: Yeah, yeah, born in Atlanta, raised in Atlanta. Yeah. I used to talk about this on stage, just like, I remember being like four years old, just hearing the radio, and just like–

[audience laughs]  

“I’m in the living room, getting down, Bruce Springsteen, Born In The U.S.A. I’m singing, and my dad saw that. I don’t know what happened. I think he flash forwarded 20 years in the future and just imagined me sagging my pants and hitting on white women, and he was like, “Not my son. Stop this right now.”

[laughter] 

And he sat me down. He’s like, “Odinaka, come, come, come sit, sit, sit down. I need you to know, eh? Stop singing. I need you to know.”

 

[laughter] 

 

“You are from Nigeria. You’re an Igbo man, and one day you will go back to Igboland.”

 

At four, it was cool. It was like, “Oh, cool. I’m not American, I’m Nigerian.” No, this is great.

 

Stuti: Yeah. 

Odinaka: Yeah. So, every year, we’re going to go to Nigeria, we’re going to go to Nigeria, and we never went. And then one day, at 15, I come home from school one day, and there’s tickets on the table, plane tickets, and my dad was like, “You guys are going.”

Stuti: Tickets on the table. This is a dramatic way to do it too. 

Odinaka: [laughs] Yeah. Have you seen Nigerians? 

[laughter] 

Odinaka: Everything’s dramatic. 

[laughter]

Odinaka: Yeah. So, we land at the airport in Nigeria for the first time. We’re in Lagos. Get on the bus, head to the village. Me and my grandmothers were in the village for a couple months, hanging out with cousins, aunts, meeting extended family, all that good stuff. Dancing, great time, eating food. It’s just like this beautiful homecoming. 

But then it was like, we have to actually go to school. 

Stuti: Yeah. Damn. 

[laughter] 

[school bell ringing]

Lupita: Don’t go anywhere. More Mind Your Own after this quick break. 

Welcome back. You’re listening to Mind Your Own.

[school bell ringing]

Odinaka: Yeah. So, we get there the first day of class, and we’re in the wrong uniform. Everybody wears white and green. We’re wearing white and white. So, automatically, we just stand out. 

I sit down, and I’m nervous. Whenever I’m nervous, I got to pee. And so, I walk up to leave the classroom to go pee, and as soon as I walk out the classroom, I’m like, “Shit, I don’t know where the bathroom is.” Then I was like, “Oh, shit. This is Africa. We just pee wherever we want, right?” 

Stuti: [laughs] Stop.

Odinaka: Yeah. [laughs] I was a dumb American. So, I walked out the classroom to go pee. The first tree I saw, I just start peeing on this tree. 

Stuti: Oh, my God. Wow. 

Odinaka: Yeah.

Stuti: At boarding school. 

Odinaka: Yeah, boarding school. I turn around, look at, and the tree that I picked is not only in front of my classroom, but the whole 10th grade block of classrooms. 

Stuti: Oh, no. [laughs] 

Odinaka: So, I just peed in front of my whole grade. 

Stuti: [laughs] Continue.

Odinaka: [laughs] Like that moment, that followed me in a weird way. People kinda knew me as like the dude that peed on the tree. That’s the American kid who pees on shit. That was just how I got known. 

Stuti: [laughs] 

Odinaka: Boarding school Nigeria feels like military school. “You got to be here this time, this time, this time.” Everything is super regimented. The principal, the teachers, everybody’s there from 09:00 to 05:00, and then they go home. And so, when they go home, 16, 17, 18-year-olds are the ones in charge of your life. Like, that’s who you report to. 

Stuti: Wow.

Odinaka: They can flog you, spank you. [chuckles] Flog sounds better. 

[laughter] 

Odinaka: I remember this one guy, Fuji. He would just walk around with a belt or a piece of wood he found somewhere or anything he’d find to hit people. He’d be coming down the hall, and people were like, “Fuji’s coming. Fuji coming.” These guys are running, chairs are flying everywhere, like, “Get out of the way, because Fuji’s coming.” That was what a lot of the older kids that you were trying to avoid and just stay out of their fucking way. They were just always trying to find a way to fuck with somebody. Coming from America, I stuck out like a sore thumb, and peeing on that tree didn’t help. 

Stuti: [giggles] 

Odinaka: Every morning we’d wake up, generator comes on. So, everybody’s like hustling and busting, get to class. You got to fetch your water. You got to get your uniform together. You got to iron it if there’s time to iron, if you care about that kind of thing. You got to get to dining hall to eat breakfast and then go to class. You’re trying to get your chores done, but then older kids are also like, “Hey, do my chores too.” “Oh, yeah, I see you’re going to fetch water. Take this bucket with you.” Now you got to fill two buckets of water. You got to wait in line. That’s annoying because, one, you don’t want to do it, but also it makes you late to class. 

One time I was late to class and I got suspended. So, it was that serious. So, you’re just trying to lay low to not have some senior come and add something to your plate. 

I remember my younger brother, when he would wake up, the generator would come on, and he wouldn’t go fetch water, actually. He would wander off somewhere else.

Stuti: Interesting. 

Odinaka: I was like, “Where is he going? What’s he doing?” And so, one morning, I decided to follow him. And he’s walking to this classroom, to a room full of kids, and they’re praying, hands waving, just like, “Oh, God, I thank you for waking us up this morning. You didn’t have to do it, but You did.” People are singing, [singing a religious song in Igbo] People are like, “[singing a religious song in Igbo].” It’s not in unison. Everybody’s doing their own thing. Something new in my life. Something wonderful in my life. Something positive in my life. Oh, Lord. And they were just going in. Praise and worship. Praise and worship. 

Stuti: Cool way to start your morning. 

Odinaka: Yeah, that’s a great way to start your morning. It’s the opposite of what was going on. And then eventually it comes together like, it gets to a cacophony. And then somebody, one guy will break in like, “Okay, God, we are here today.” He’ll just lead the prayer. 

These kids were the Holy Holies. Like, nobody messed with the Holy Holies. They were like, “No, leave them alone. God is going to strike you.” And so, it was like, oh, wait, there’s some benefits of hanging out with this group. So, if I go over here, I can just like have a regular chill morning and nobody’s going to bother me. That was a really big motivation to keep going to morning prayer. 

Stuti: This was a smart decision. 

Odinaka: Yeah, this is a survival decision. 

Stuti: Yeah. 

[laughter] 

[melodious music]

Lupita: We’ll be back in a quick second. Stay tuned. 

You’re listening to Mind Your Own. Let’s get back into it. 

Odinaka: It started out like, okay, this is how I avoid bullies, but it really became something genuine for me. Yeah, during that time. I just showed up and kept doing that. I guess, in going through the motions per se, I became really devout. I carried the Bible with me all the time, and that’s when I would finish my studies, I’d be reading my Bible and highlighting shit. I stopped listening to hip hop. I loved hip hop, and I stopped listening because I was like, “Oh, man, these are demonic messages. We can’t be doing this.” 

Thong Song was huge, and there was a big thing about like, if you play Thong Song backwards, there’s some kind of like satanic message in it. 

Stuti: Yeah. [laughs] 

Odinaka: I would spread that gospel. I’ll be telling like, “No, man, don’t listen to Thong Song. Have you heard about–” [laughs] 

Stuti: That’s a great warrior for Jesus. [giggles] 

Odinaka: I’m preaching the gospel of the evils of Thong Song. I go from there to becoming part of the Catholic Executives. I was running with the Holy Holies, and now I’m showing the Holy Holies how to run. Catholic Executives, they ran the church activities on campus, and I was the President because I showed up so much. 

Stuti: The name Catholic Executives is just great. I love that. 

Odinaka: [laughs] Told you, yeah.

Stuti: Put that on your resume. 

Odinaka: Basically, we were the ones in charge of mass, like, choir rehearsal, we’d do that. Bible study is a couple of times a week. And so, we lead Bible study. One of the duties is you got to preach on Sunday. Every Sunday you got to preach. That was kind of intimidating. It’s like, “Oh, I’ve never done that before.” 

Stuti: You were chosen.

[laughter] 

Odinaka: Yeah. 

Stuti: The burning bush came to you. Okay, so what did you pick to preach about? 

Odinaka: One of my first sermons actually was, I was like, “What am I going to talk about?” It happens at Bible study. So, we already have mass in the morning on Sunday. This is the evening time. It’s right before sunset. We’re in the dining hall, just one big hall and these wooden tables with these benches with no backs on the sides of the tables. The kids are sitting there. They’re looking at me, and it’s like, all right, I got to deliver something. I don’t know what it is. I’d been prepping a little bit. Like, I didn’t just go in blank. I was thinking, “Well, shit, back in America, what would– WWJD.” “What Would Jesus Do” was really big. 

Stuti: Oh, yeah, I remember the– [crosstalk] 

Odinaka: Oh, that was big for you too? 

Stuti: Yeah. 

Odinaka: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Stuti: I remember when the WWJD bracelets came out.  

Odinaka: The bracelets. Yeah. So, that was like–

Stuti: The tie dye t-shirts. [laughs] 

Odinaka: Yeah. So, my first sermon was, what would Jesus do? 

Stuti: [laughs] 

Odinaka: WWJD. 

Stuti: [laughs] 

Odinaka: Yeah. “Back in my old school in America, whenever we’d be faced with the crossroads or a decision, we’d ask ourselves, ‘What would Jesus do?’” 

I felt people perking up. 

“You’re mad about this exam, finals coming, and there’s a lot of pressure. ‘What would Jesus do?’ If somebody flogs you and you want to hit them back, ‘what would Jesus do?’ You turn the other cheek. Flog me over this side, sir.” 

[laughter] 

Odinaka: Somehow people resonated with it. It went from like, just blank stares to slight head nods. And I was like, “Oh, okay. I guess there’s something here. I don’t know what this is, but there’s something here that I’m just going to keep doing.” 

You know what? It was maybe I can do this. That’s what it was. It was, maybe I can do this. 

Stuti: Yeah, that’s really cool. It’s where you got the, “Oh, I can perform in front of other people.”

Odinaka: Yeah. 

Stuti: Did you notice a difference in how you interacted with your community at boarding school after you started preaching? 

Odinaka: I guess, I had a little bit more clout. I really struggled to find my niche, and the Catholic Executives, being part of them felt like my niche. 

Preaching on Sundays, that was like, yeah, I guess that just became a regular thing. It was awkward at first, and I just got the hang of it, but something in me felt comfortable doing that. 

But then I kind of hit a rough patch with it. 

This one guy who was part of Catholic Executives, Edwin, he was real cool. He had Sportin’ Waves, you know what saying? Always – the way his khakis– [chuckles] I know, khakis. But the way his khakis were pressed, you don’t understand.

Stuti: Yeah. [laughs] 

Odinaka: The sharp line? That was the swag in boarding school. If you had your shit ironed, shirt tucked in, belt– [crosstalk] 

Stuti: Crisp. Give it up for Edwin.

Odinaka: Yeah, nigga was doing it. 

Stuti: [laughs] 

Odinaka: So, he had a little pull. You know what I’m saying? Girls is peeping and whatnot. So, he was talking to Mary. She was brilliant, smart, always called on, the top five. It was like the smooth guy, the brilliant girl, they would meet after class, and they’d be talking and chit-chatting and whatnot. This was like really dangerous stuff. This is like– [crosstalk] 

Stuti: Scandalous– [crosstalk] 

Odinaka: Yeah, scandalous. That’s the word. Yeah, this is tabloid material. The way it was split up was like, guys and girls, we do not interact. It was very puritanical. It wasn’t like that across Nigeria or even Igboland. That was just like in FGC Nise in the late 1990s, early 2000s. That was just the way it was. Since Edwin was part of the Catholic Executives, it came under me somehow. 

So, enter Kaiso, who was another Catholic Executive, and she was truly devout. 

When she would pray in group prayer, it wasn’t even like we were in the room with her. We’re listening in her private conversations with white baby Jesus. We were just privileged to be there. She was almost like a prophet. She would always call out anything that was going wrong on campus, anywhere. And so, when Edwin was talking to Mary, she had words to say. 

Kaiso was really adamant about me kicking Edwin out. She’s like, “Odinaka, we have to kick him out. He cannot be here.” She had this very calm way of talking, but it’s very serious. She’s like, “Odinaka, we must kick him out. He has to go.” You know like a cult leader talking to you? 

Stuti: And you’re just looking at her?

Odinaka: I’m just like, “Shit.” You know, Matthew, Chapter 5, “Whoever looks at a woman with lust in his eyes has already committed the sin of adultery. Already committed.” 

Stuti: She had it memorized. 

Odinaka: Yeah. [laughs] In a way, I did take that stuff very serious at the time, but for some reason, this part just didn’t quite land. Maybe I want to talk to girls too. I want to be like Edwin. Maybe I’m like–

[laughter] 

Odinaka: Damn, Edwin’s doing it, man.

“I don’t really see the big deal here, Kaiso. Back in America, it was normal. Guys and girls talking, you know what I’m saying, giving a hug when they see each other, greet each other.”

“Hug? Hug, kwa? Chineke! So, you think it’s normal to embrace girls, eh? This is the work of Satan. Odinaka, you are the President of the Executives. You are not going to bring this ministry down with your demonic American ways.” 

So, when I didn’t cave on that, she was like, “This is a problem.” She walked away, and I had this feeling like, “Oh, damn, this is not good. I might be cooked.” 

And sure enough, the next Sunday, she goes up to preach, she’s like, “I have found the moneychangers in the temple and they came from America.”

Stuti: Oh, my God. 

Odinaka: Kinda felt like all eyes on me. I felt the beams. 

But I really felt the beams the next Sunday, when it was my turn to preach and I got up there, and other kids, they left. They walked out as I began to talk.

Stuti: Damn.

Odinaka: That stung a little bit. One, they’d rather risk flogging than listen to me talk. That’s the thing. But also, they don’t want to listen to me talk? Like, come on, man. Yeah, it’s like bombing. It’s like bombing as a comic, but I was like, but I was bombing as a preacher. My place as a Catholic Executive was never quite the same. The one place where I felt like I really found myself here, I lost it. 

As a performer now, I look back on that preacher kid and I see the seeds of what I do now. I don’t identify as a Christian anymore, but I still get up on stage and I talk to people. When I’m on stage, it just feels like, this is where I’m supposed to be and I can’t really explain it. 

And then it’s like, okay, well, what am I going to say now that I’m here?

[engrossing music]

Lupita: Odinaka’s experience reminds me of stories I heard in Kenya of kids who went to boarding school. They’re so similar. So, even though I didn’t go to boarding school, I definitely know those stories. It was legend. That need for protection as a freshman student in high school, everybody I know who went to boarding school went through that. 

I would also say that there is something to be said about going to religious institutions. WWJD, oh, we were not left behind in Kenya, by the way. I remember I had a WWJD bracelet. I had a few. Even in my school, the assembly teachers would be talking about WWJD, and it became my conscience. I tried my best, but sometimes I didn’t know what Jesus would do. 

[upbeat music]

Lupita: Thank you, Odinaka, for sharing your story and Stuti for joining us in the studio. Odinaka returned to the US after high school where he built a comedy career. Odinaka and Stuti are working on a new podcast called That’s What’s Up. To find it, check out our show notes.

Thanks for listening. It’s been good to have you. And I really enjoyed going with you to Nigeria. We ironed our best khakis, stepped up to the pulpit, only to find out that the moneychangers in the temple? They are us. 

See you the next time you Mind Your Own. 

Until then, here’s a song from the continent: Blessed by Kiddo CSA featuring BlaqBonez.

[Blessed by Kiddo CSA playing]

Lupita: Mind Your Own is hosted and produced by me, Lupita Nyong’o. This is a production of Snap Studios at KQED, with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media. 

The executive producers are Glynn Washington and Mark Ristich. Our managing editor is Regina Bediako. Our director of production is Marisa Dodge.

Original music in my story, “The Black Ties,” was by Cheflee. The story “The Holy Holies” was written by Odinaka Ezeokoli and produced by John Fecile. Original music by Ehiorobo. 

Our Mind Your Own producers are David Exumé and Priscilla Alabi. Our story scouts are Ashley Okwuosa, Fiona Nyong’o, Jessica Kariisa, and Lesedi Oluko Moche. Our editors are Nancy Lopez and Anna Sussman. Our story consultant is John Fecile. Engineering by Miles Lassi. Our music supervisor is Sandra Lawson-Ndu, also known as Sandu Ndu. She also created the Mind Your Own theme song with Peachcurls, featuring vocals from Ehiorobo. 

Graphic design by Jemimah Ekeh. Original artwork by Mateus Sithole.

Special thanks to Allan Coye, Jake Kleinberg, Samara Still, Sarah Yoo, Warner Music Group, and Afripods.

Make sure to follow Mind Your Own and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There’s even more to love with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content from across the network for only $4.99 a month. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts.

Now go out, get together, and mind your own… rules.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]