Soundtrack to Your Summer: Vocal Slender
What would you be willing to do to make your dream a reality? It wasn’t until BBC 2 aired Welcome to Lagos a three-part documentary about life in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria that I considered the question more deeply. In the first part of the series I—like millions of viewers in the UK— was introduced to Eric Obuh, better known as Vocal Slender, for the first time on the television. A self-proclaimed scavenger working on the Olusosun rubbish dump by day and an aspiring musician working in recording studios at night, Eric’s perseverance for a successful career in music was both palpable and inspiring.
The stage name Vocal Slender is a combination of Eric’s childhood nickname and an excerpt from a Bible passage. Growing up he was called “Slender” because of his slim frame, but as he began to make music he found additional inspiration for his stage name “In the Bible I found ‘The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness’ (John 1:23), so that could be shortened to V-O-C-W. I then changed Wilderness to Africa, so “The Voice of One Crying in the Africa”, V-O-C-A.” The film crew from the documentary suggested that he add L at the end creating the moniker Vocal Slender.
Eric’s life took a similar twist of fate last year when what seemed like an ordinary day hanging out with friends turned into an offer from the film crew to be a part of the documentary. “I come in that day and—we are not working that day— I was entertaining some few friends and they were listening to me. Then I just look at them and say ‘who the white man watching me, why?’” The production crew explained to him that they were filming a documentary about the rubbish dump and the people who lived and worked there.
It was only after a friend introduced him to the “dump” four years before this encounter that Eric began working there to fund his recording sessions at a studio in Lagos without his family and friends knowing. He was reluctant to work there at first “I was really shocked. I was really surprised but I just give up to it if I have to do it. But God have a way of doing something. The first day I work I made 600 naira (£2.66), he’s great, all this money. That’s the way the spirit used to call me to the job. I forget about the smell. I forget seeing myself as a dump worker.” Eric focused on his dream and found a way to make working on the dump tolerable: “I will just transform myself and forget about the situation. Working on the dump I just change myself. Well, let me work this work at least working this work is to get money for my recording studio.”
Eventually Eric invited the production team to come to the studio as he recorded his popular single Owo Yapa. The production crew assured him the documentary would not be shown in Nigeria so he gave them permission to record him working on the dump. However, after the documentary aired here in April word soon spread about Vocal Slender and his music. “The documentary really open a lot of doors for me and Coko Bar brought me from Nigeria to London and did a video for me here in London.”
What’s most endearing about Eric is his humility. He’s extremely optimistic and thankful for the support of his fans here in the UK “I feel great and privileged by God. It’s not that I’m the best it’s like God loves me.” He is a firm believer in destiny and doesn’t feel like his path in life is by chance “Everything has been destined by God. A lot of people say accident, no, nothing is accident. Everything has a divine intervention.” He’s very level-headed and fully aware that where there is good there is also bad. He continues on to say “That doesn’t mean that there’s no negative aspect of it that’s trying to counter you from making it to the top. The divine aspect of it is when God is trying to push you forward there’s always a negative aspect. It’s left for the man or woman to look inward and shun the voice of the negative aspect and try to be more positive.”
Eric’s positivity gives him the confidence needed to succeed in a tough industry “My goal as a musician is to win the Grammy award but I don’t know the song I will use to win, but I have the vision before I leave the earth I will win it. I know that. I’m working on it.”
Vocal Slender’s single Owo Yapa is available on iTunes
This is great! I saw the documentary and have been looking for updates on all the people featured on the documentary.
What a great piece on Eric.
I will use this on my blog and link it back to you!
TK
Thanks so much for this interview! It’s so good to know what’s been happening with Eric since the documentary. Good piece.
Shalom z