The Fish in a Tree.

I recorded my song after quite a long time. It was a goal set for January and this is 3:33am, 30th January, 2026. I met up with the goal. My producer said he loved it and we did the whole thing in just two takes. The process was so enjoyable and I relished the way he nodded his head, even whistling along. He said he liked my energy. This was not the same experience with the previous song. Granted that one was a cover, I was sweating and my voice strained by the end of the countless sessions that still felt unproductive at the end. I was off key and the constant pressure to meet with the pitches or grasp the emotions took a toll on me mentally. I grew tired quickly.

That experience made me dread recording my own song. It was mine through and through. He produced the sound and the lyrics written by yours truly but I told myself, if I couldn’t sing a mere cover, what chances are there that I would deliver one that I wrote? And it’s a rap too! That made me shake but I was determined to try and then work on it from there. I had practiced nonstop for days (three weeks if not more), into the late hours of the night and early when I rise. It was my waking thought and the last before I went to bed. I would modify, stretch and reword my work.

This was late December into January. 29th January, 2026, I went into his studio. And the result floored me. Turned out better than I expected. I thought it was because of the constant practice and he said,

“That first song wasn’t bad o, it’s just not you.”

While walking out the studio and home, I realised that perhaps I was living the whole ‘fish climbing a tree’ quote. For a very long time, I have always been a rap girl. I like listening to pop songs, afro, and the likes but Hip Hop has always done it for me. Even when I listen to gospel, I prefer to listen to Hip Hop. So, I thought, maybe I was trying to be like the rest when I could be me, unadulterated. I also realised that I was trying to be like the rest because singing words felt easier than rapping them. It takes a lot of work and heavy amount of practice if I want to bring words together in a way that they conveyed the message I had without being filled with unneccessary rhymes.

This then made me realise that I was truly lazy. I was lazy! The thought of the work I would put in sent me running from what I loved to something else. It was eye-opening. I wanted the best without giving my best. That was a problem –my problem it seemed. And this is what we do most times, isn’t it? We want something so much but then we let it go because it requires we give so much of ourselves. It requires work. Work that could be gruelling and downright challenging. Work that makes us question our abilities, our knowledge and maybe even our worth. This is what happened to me when I decided to sit down and write the lyrics to this song. Its words came from a place of hardcore communication with a loved one. We tackled faith, our beliefs, our values and our healing. We said what needed to be said.

It wasn’t easy for both of us but this was where the lyrics of the song began to come to me and as I began to write, I felt fear. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for real life conversations presented as lyrics. I am not NF. Yeah, I wasn’t, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t set my own trend. So, I kept writing, modifying and staying true even when I heard the, ‘who’d listen to this?’. I kept going even when I thought of flopping with the delivery and maybe never recording the song at all. The only reason I kept going was because I wanted to capture that moment (the one with my loved one) so much and keep it in a time-capsule. Best ways to do this is either through pictures, letters or songs. Guess what way I leaned?

Anyway, this is getting way too long and so I have to end this here. But before I do, I needed to get this out there. I needed a reminder of this moment and how beautiful it all was.