Her early childhood was spent practicing Islam, but Abiola Ibrahim, a gospel musician, is now a born-again Christian. Popularly known as Haybee Rock because of her love for rock songs, the budding gospel artiste tells JOE AGBRO JR. how she got into singing and why she is more concerned about using her music to evangelise
It’s a genre many people generally associate with noise, drugs and rebellion disposition. But to Abiola Ibrahim, rock music is her preferred mode of praising God. And following Nigerian gospel artistes like Rooftop MCs and Eben, at 23, Haybee Rock, as Ibrahim is popularly known, is an up and coming gospel musician.
Born in Lagos on November 21, 1991 to a Malian father and a Nigerian mother, Abiola, for the first ten years of her life, practiced Islam. She could not have done otherwise. Though her mother is the first wife, her father, a Muslim versed in Islam, married three other women. And Haybee Rock is the last of three daughters from the union.
But Abiola’s story could be likened to a twist of fortune. Born with a silver spoon, her circumstances changed when she was about seven years old. Her dad, who worked with NAHCO, lost his job and things became hard for her family. Her dad having four wives and lots of children didn’t help matters.
“Taking care of us was hard,” Abiola recalled of her dad’s turn of fortune. “He called all of his wives together and informed them of plans to relocate the entire family back to Mali.”
While the other wives and their children agreed to the plans to relocate to Mali, Abiola and her siblings stayed behind with their mother. In 2002, her dad left for Mali but Abiola and her siblings from her mother stayed behind. Had she gone with her dad, she may never have stepped in a church. And Christian gospel music would probably have been out of the question.
“It was hard for her (her mother) to leave her family,” she said.
It was after this period that Abiola started attending church. Her father got to know this through some of his family members that squealed about her new religion.
“They didn’t know how we were feeding but they had time to see us whenever we were going to church.”
Being a staunch Moslem, Abiola said her father was angry when he called over the telephone. Her mother stood by the decision to attend church. And for the young Abiola, church was a better place of worship because, instead of being flogged as she remembers enduring while going to the mosque, she got biscuits at the church. In 2006 when her dad came to Lagos, she and her siblings still had not changed their minds. “We stood our ground. We told him, ‘we can’t go to mosque again.’”
Again, there were plans for her and her remaining siblings to relocate to Mali. But this time around, courtesy of her principal who advised her mum to check out the condition before taking her kids there, it was her mum that went to Mali first. However, after spending a year there, her mother felt her daughters were better off remaining in Nigeria. Though she was excited to be off to Mali then, now she looks back and is thankful she didn’t go.
Finding Christ
HER life had always been a bit rocky. Up till 1999, she schooled in Lagos before going to Ilorin to finish primary school. The girls together with their mother spent one year there before relocating back to Lagos for her secondary school education.
After secondary school, she worked for a year before heading back to study for IJMB at Ilorin. She passed the IJMB, scoring eight points and got admission several into state and private universities but the high fees scared her off. That was the cycle for the four years she spent in Ilorin after passing her IJMB.
“You know, we’re not financially buoyant like that,” she said of her family.
To keep her time, she studied fashion designing for one and a half years. It was a consolation for the four years spent in Ilorin. Succour came her way when she got a job as a front desk officer at a Lagos-based hotel. Working three days on and taking three days off, the job afforded her time to practice and money, too, to fund not just her education, but also her music.
“My plan is to work and gather money and open a shop and be a fashion designer and be able to help my music career through the salary I earn,” says Haybee Rock who is single but in a relationship.
This year, she got admission to study Mass Communication at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). “I’ve gotten to a stage where I don’t rely on anybody again. They’ve disappointed me a long time. The only person that has been helping so far has been God.”
Music from the church
ABIOLA remembers singing by age seven. Her dad was away on a trip to Mali. And Abiola’s mum, having a Christian background, saw nothing wrong in her own younger sister taking Abiola to church.
“She couldn’t try it if my dad were around because then we were always going to mosques,” she said of her aunt taking her to a Redeemed Church.
“When I got to the church, I had never opened a bible before.”
But her participation, opening and reading from bible passages impressed the pastor who enquired about her.
“My dad stayed long and I started going to church. I joined the children’s choir. From there, they turned me to children’s choir leader.”
She became teenage choir leader and, later, youth choir leader while she was in Ilorin. Her mother knew her love for singing and prayed for her. Perhaps, music was a sort of balm from the harsh life. She recalls playing and writing 2Face’s songs on his first album in an exercise book. “I would pause the song, write the lyrics and replayed till all the lyrics were written down,” she said.
However, it was not until 2010 that she started out professionally in music. She met Solo Soft, a Niger State-based video producer in Ilorin. Though Abiola had known she wanted to do music, she didn’t know how to break into the industry. Solo Soft took her to the studio. “He said, ‘it’s time you started doing music professionally.”
She started writing songs and eventually did three songs but only one, Scream, was uploaded online. That was in September 2010. “Lots of people heard it and they were like, ‘we’ve been expecting this for long. Where have you been hiding and all that?’”
The compliments egged Abiola on.
“I felt like this was what I was meant to do.”
It would take four years before she came out with another gospel rock song, Erupe Ile (Dust of the Earth), in December. On April 1, this year, she came out with No One which has a reggae tinge to it. Abiola places singing rock and reggae as being versatile.
“I don’t actually care about genre. I actually care about the message I’m passing across. Sometimes I might just sit down and a song in form of R and B will come to me. I start to wonder, is gospel a particular genre? I can do anything. I can do R and B, I can do jazz, I can do hip hop, so far as I am passing a message. I love most genres. In fact, I want to rap.”
But rock is the genre she’s naturally inclined to. In fact, her name, Haybee Rock, is a play on the first two alphabets AB in her name, Abiola, and ‘rock.’
“I love rock,” she gushes.
“I listen to so many rock artistes.” But it is Mark Schultz that spawned that love.
Haybee Rock who loved Celine Dion a lot while growing up even started learning the guitar because of her love for rock but stopped due to time constraints.
As per the reggae song, it was just providence that turned it so. She got the inspiration for the song and recorded it with her phone. In the studio, she wanted to a do a rock number, but the producer thought reggae. “There is no way the song can be done as rock,” she remembers the producer telling her. The producer got his way.
Another single, No Shade Of Grey, featuring Abiodun Arogunmaya, was released November 1. It is also a rock song. According to Haybee Rock, the song, which is about taking a stance on how to relate with God, is to celebrate her birth month.
“Instead of receiving gifts, why don’t I give people gifts?”
Since 2010, it’s been a slow but steady rise. Her second single, Erupe Ile, a popular local gospel folklore gets a rebirth with a tinge of gospel. She confesses that her schedule has made her a bit reclusive.
“I don’t even have friends anymore because they will get angry that I don’t visit them anymore.”
Going gospel
MAYBE, that is so for Abiola, because to her, music is really a form of evangelism.
“If not for God, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she said.
“I believe as a Christian, our purpose in life is to reach out to people and let them be aware that God loves them. And that should stick to everybody’s memory.
“And we can’t all be preachers. Some people actually pass a message by acting. And because I know mine is the ability to sing and it has been there right from my childhood and the only way I can preach out this message is by singing.”
However, she admits that she likes to be in church. And if she’s bored, the studio is also another choice destination. But Haybee Rock also knows that music will take her beyond churches. And she is ready for it.
“In fact, very soon, I would be doing a dancehall song that can be played in clubs,” says Haybee Rock, poising to trail Winans Phase 2 whose gospel song, It’s Alright (Send Me), also became a club banger. “It’s going to be gospel too.”
“Reaching out has been so encouraging. When I released No One, the bloggers accepted the song and said, ‘this song is good.’ And so many people identified with the song and said ‘your song blessed me.’ The song talks about no one being like God.
“I am not in it for the money or the fame. I am in it because I want to pass a message. And the only way I can do it is by singing.”
By 2017, should she continue, Haybee Rock would have spent seven years in the music industry. It is also the year she looks at coming out with an album.
“They say seven is a number of perfection. I don’t just want to release an album. Actually, I’m not interested in just releasing an album. I’m interested in reaching out, for people to know me, to hear my song.”
