Secrets of the Streets: Twenty-Three Secrets for Making Money with Your Talent That You Will Never Learn in School

By Teju Oyelakin

There was one surefire way to become a recognized stand-up comedian in West Africa back in the day, and that was performing on the biggest comedy stage—a concert tagged “Night of a Thousand Laughs.” That feat, however, was easier said than done. You had to grab one of the few rookie spots available every year—and that did not mean performing in front of Simon Cowell and his friends on American Idol. Auditions were held in a bar in the middle of the night with established members of the Nigerian entertainment industry. By the time you were called to perform, they were likely drunk or even high.

It didn’t seem like an audition as much as it did an inquisition. It was as if an unspoken question hung in the air: How dare you assume that you are funny enough to be a comedian?

In this book, Teju ‘Babyface’ Oyelakin shares how an unlikely fresh-faced newbie became one of Africa’s foremost stand-up comedians and most successful talk show hosts—as well as twenty-three secrets that anyone can use to make money with their talent and live out their dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664207172

Teju Oyelakin

Teju ‘Babyface’ Oyelakin, popularly called “The King of Talk,” is one of Africa’s most successful stand-up comedians and talk show hosts who pioneered the late-night talk genre in Nigeria with “The Teju Babyface Show.” A recipient of many awards, he was nominated as a United Nations Sustainable Developments Goal Ambassador for Nigeria in 2017. He is married to Oluwatobiloba, and they are blessed with twin children. He lives in Dallas USA.

Book preview

Secrets

of the

Streets

Twenty-Three Secrets

for Making Money

with Your Talent That

You Will Never Learn

in School

TEJU ‘BABYFACE’ OYELAKIN

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Copyright © 2020 Teju ‘Babyface’ Oyelakin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version- Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0718-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0719-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0717-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020918714

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/03/2020

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Secret #1 The Secret of the Jamb Question

Secret #2 The Secret of Boniface

Secret #3 The Secret of the Puma

Secret #4 The Secret of the Puma (2)

Secret #5 The Secret of King Solo

Secret #6 The Secret of the Bros

Secret #7 The Secret of Monkey Work, Baboon Chop

Secret #8 The Secret of Banging

Secret #9 The Secret of the Gospel According to M.I

Secret #10 The Secret of the Scion

Secret #11 The Secret of Confam

Secret #12 The Secret of the Lay-About

Secret #13 The Secret of Joe

Secret #14 The Secret of Maintain Your Shampion

Secret #15 The Secret of OYO

Secret #16 The Secret of Lilliput

Secret #17 The Secret of the Efiko

Secret #18 The Secret of Hip and Hop

Secret #19 The Secret of the War Chest

Secret #20 The Secret of Titration

Secret #21 The Secret of Wetin You Bring?

Secret #22 The Secret of the Last Card

Secret #23 The Secret of the Latter Shine

Forget Principles; Find a Mentor!

PART I

Forget Principles?

Mentor

Types and Kinds

This Here Book

Oh, One Other Thing

PART II

The Secrets of Identification

#1 The Third Generation

#2 No One Can Tell You Exactly How to Be Successful (Neither Will Principles Get You There, for That Matter)

#3 God’s Waiting Room

#4 The Voice in the Voice

#5 Actually, People Can Take You Where They Have Never Been

#6 No Dirty Jokes Please!

#7 Caveat Emptor

#8 Apples and Oranges

#9 I Wanna Be Close to You, Wanna Be Close to You, Wanna Be Close to You, Yeah …

#10 You Shall Not Pass!

PART III

How to Connect with Those Whose Mentoring You Desire

TYPE 1

But Time and Chance Happen to All Men

THE SECRETS OF THE HERO MENTOR

#11 Attraction

#12 Forget the Breakthrough

#13 Jah Jah, I Gat to Keep on Moving …

TYPE 2

Rev!

THE SECRETS OF THE RECOGNIZED MENTOR

#14 A Plan

#15 Measurable Value

#16 Don’t Ask

#17 Don’t Cheat (Or Attempt to Anyway)

#18 Absolutely Pointless!

TYPE 3

The Unrecognized Mentor (and Their Secrets)

Reverse POV (Point of View)

SECRETS OF THE UNRECOGNIZED MENTOR

#19 Precept upon Precept, Line after Line, Step by Step

#20 Who You Be?

#21 Believing in the One He Has Sent

#22 Remove Your Shoes!

TYPE 4

The Parallel or Mutual Mentor (and Their Secrets)

P.K the First, the Main, and the Ultimate!

You Have the Gift, Sir!

It Turns Out …

THE SECRETS OF THE MUTUAL OR PARALLEL MENTOR

#23 Eyes Must Not Push You

#24 I Am Not Your Bro, Bro

PART IV

Just an Academic Exercise

The Granddaddy Secret

Epilogue a.k.a. Opin Cinema

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the memory of my hero, friend and confidant, Omo Oba¹ Jacob Gbadegesin Oyelakin. I still hear your voice dad.

And to mommy, Ajike Ebunolu Oyelakin. Ajike, awon omo re’n ki o o²

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Apart from those who expect their names to be there, does anyone actually read the Acknowledgements in a book?

Well, I don’t.

Which is now something of a challenge, because I want you to read this. So, I have devised a system.

I will enumerate them as opposed to writing prose. That way, you can just skim through to see whether your name appears here… Or not.

Come on, you know you want to.

Appreciation

1. The wife and best friend - Oluwatobiloba Oyelakin

2. The double bundles of Joy who have made our lives unbelievably richer- Oreofeoluwa & Oreoluwa Oyelakin

3. The mother - Olori Oluyemisi Oyelakin

4. The siblings - Mojoyinola Oyelakin, Adebukola & Oyeyemi Adeyemi, Omolara Oyelakin and Gbadebo Oyelakin (the Manf)

5. The family - the Oyelakins, Banjokos, Muritalas and Animashauns

6. The appointer - Olakunle Soriyan

7. The believers - Adetunji Ogunwusi, Dr. Muiz Banire (SAN) and Fola Adeola

8. The long-time mentors - Leke Alder, Sam Adeyemi and Femi Paul

9. The first editor and counselor - Demilade Olaosun

10. The second editor and ‘encourager’ - Azubuike Ishiekwene

11. The boyhood hero and the advocate - Richard and Jumobi Mofe-Damijo

12. The supporter-in-creativity - Tade ‘Ignatius’ Ogidan

13. The broses - Basorge Tariah and Ali Baba

14. The visionary marketers - Tunji Adeyinka, Yetunde Akin-Olaiya, Oluwole Mayungbo, Rilwan Fujah, Eniola Gilbert and all at Connect Marketing Services

15. Please fill in your name here if you think it ought to have appeared, but didn’t

INTRODUCTION

It can be the best of times and the worst of times all at the same time, depending on how you look at the circumstances. The idea for this joint volume came about during the scourge that was the Coronavirus pandemic.

It was mid-March 2020, and President Trump had finally decided to take the virus seriously, much to the joint chagrin and relief of various factions, and the world was still reeling from the onslaught of this unseen enemy. The world was not quite in chaos but was fearful and unsure about what the reality of humanity would be from that point forward as world economies and markets reeled from the blow that was Covid-19. It had become increasingly clear that the problem was not local, and it definitely was no respecter of persons, economic power, or circumstances. It had the power to alter our reality as a race, perhaps not for the better.

That was when this project was born.

I had been meaning to release my third book for a couple of months. I had completed the draft for it and was looking to go ahead with publishing when, in a series of providential happenings, my focus changed, and it seemed that the more expedient thing to do was to re-edit and rerelease my first two books as a joint volume.

First, a few months before then, upon our arrival in the United States of America, my mentor and friend Olakunle Soriyan had first mooted the idea. He remains one of the biggest fans of my first book, Secrets of the Streets, and he was convinced that it needed to be released again for a global market. Of course, we hadn’t published it the first time with just the local market in mind, but I must admit that the African continent was top of mind for me when I was writing that book, and it probably could do with a refresh for the rest of the world.

My friend was a big fan of that book with good reason.

While—with all humility—Secrets of the Streets represents just a fraction of what I have to share with the world, it was a beautifully written book that brought together the best elements of a self-help book: compelling stories, a riveting narrative, the credible author, impeccable timing of release, and so on. It was, in my friend’s eyes, the perfect vehicle for introducing me to the global stage as a thought leader.

I heard him loud and clear, and I did what most creative people do when they receive advice they do not agree with: I promptly forgot about it and moved on to what was top of mind for me at that time—my next book.³

But your mentor is your mentor for good reason. While they will not or should not seek to supplant the position of God in your life, they are necessary guides for destiny-shaping junctures and moments in your life, and for this reason, my mentor’s counsel came back to me, seemingly out of the blue, a few months later.

At the time, I had finally made peace with the fact that I was an author and that writing was a major gift,⁴ and I was looking for an American publisher for my new book. It was during a telephone conversation with a representative of one of the publishers to whom I was shopping the idea that the suggestion of my mentor came back to me, and I knew without a shadow of doubt that the new book had to wait while the first one was republished.

This happened on March 18, 2020, to be precise.

The credit for how Forget Principles, Find a Mentor became a joint volume with Secrets of the Streets, however, has to be given to the first line editor of both books and brilliant barrister at law, Olaosun Demilade.

I had attempted immediately to begin to edit Secrets of the Streets only for a fresh release, whereupon I noticed that the final edited copy that I had on my computer wasn’t giving me the latitude I needed to make changes, and so I called the man who had edited it in the first instance,⁵ my aforementioned lawyer, and asked him to send me that file. It was during this conversation that he came up with the idea for releasing the two initial books as one value-added volume for the international space.

I must confess that I was doubtful at first—partly because it meant double the work in the first instance—but I soon quickly came around to the brilliance of the idea and started to work on this project immediately, and thankfully, you hold the result in your hands now.

I consider these two books as wonder twins for a destiny of achievements with talents and must-reads for anybody who is interested in building a successful career around their natural endowments and God-given abilities. While I had more to write on the subject of harnessing talents and abilities and how to build businesses and careers around talents and gifts, I felt that I needed to write Forget Principles, Find a Mentor immediately after Secrets of the Streets because, as I have counseled and represented on timeless occasions, one of the first steps to success is mentorship. Thus, it turns out that even though I had not intended for these books to be joined together at the time of writing them individually, they do read like a continuous volume, and you will find that Forget Principles, Find a Mentor reads like a natural progression and iteration to Secrets of the Streets, and you will be glad for this marriage of the works.

The original release of Secrets of the Streets came as a shock to me, as I never thought I would write a book at the time I did, and I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that I had the book inside me. I had always figured that at sometime in the future, I would write a book. I just didn’t think it would be in 2015, because when I had my epiphany relating to thought leadership a few years ago, I assumed I was called to be a motivator and speaker mainly. As I had noticed, a book was usually the spin-off of those things, as a matter of course. A celebrated thought leader would always write a book eventually. So in my mind’s eye, the natural progression was to teach/inspire for a few years and then begin to write and publish books based on what I had been teaching on the circuit.

As I proceeded to write my thoughts down, however—so as not to forget them—I discovered that they began to take on a life of their own and went totally bonkers! It would be my intention to write down a thought I assumed would take up only one page, but as soon as I put pen to paper, one page would become two and soon balloon into multiple pages. In fact, I often worried about how I would ever manage to commit all I had written down to memory when the time to teach it came.

So what to do with what I had written?

It would take almost two years, but the answer finally arrived in a suggestion by my friend Tunde Oluwasola to write a book. At the time, the suggestion seemed ludicrous, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that I had actually written most of the book already. What I had assumed were lecture and teaching notes actually read more like a book than an oral presentation.

And so, Secrets of the Streets was born, and the rest, as they say, is history. That confident momentum led to Forget Principles, Find a Mentor.

We have tried with this release to keep the integrity of the original books intact, and thusly, we haven’t messed around with the content much. We have clarified and defined appropriately for a global audience and also made it a better-paced read, but they were always that really.

I believe that success in the world proceeds from a proper understanding of self, and a key part of that knowledge of self is knowledge of (your) talent. Thus this book(s) is written for those who seek to harness that which comes to them naturally and use it to achieve good success.

Cheers,

Teju ‘Babyface’ Oyelakin

Dallas, Texas March 2000+20

P.S. Oh, did I already mention that this project found life during the coronavirus pandemic? It turns out that while most of the world was on a serious lockdown from the virus, I had more than enough work to do, and it was probably one of the busiest and most fulfilling times of my life. I don’t mean to gloat though.⁶ Just letting you in on the facts so that you can get a fuller picture as well as an understanding that good things sometimes come out of tough or bleak times. As the Yoruba people of Africa opine, ninu ikoko dudu ni eko funfun ti’n jade.⁷

SECRET #1

The Secret of the Jamb Question

⁸

"Bros⁹, am I supposed to be a comedian?"

I asked this question of my second comedy mentor,¹⁰ Ali Baba,¹¹ several times during the period I served as his apprentice.

Am I supposed to be a comedian?

It was an inquiry he treated with his usual approach to banal matters; he thoroughly ignored me.

He had (and probably still has) an annoying habit of becoming tight-lipped whenever he thought you were speaking on matters he felt you ought to know better than to speak about. Having suffered the embarrassment of being ignored a few times, I stopped asking. Then, in a move that closely resembled how life often deals with us, he supplied the answer when I least expected it.

I had followed him to Akodo Beach Resort in the Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos¹² for an event he was to emcee—the annual gathering of the Jaycees Association. It was an all-night event and one of those rare occasions where the emcee is treated as one of the family.

After performing for a few hours, Ali was able to put his feet up on the sandy beach under the moonlight, with a drink in hand (nonalcoholic—Ali was a notorious teetotaler) and watch the Jaycees members eat, dance, and have a good time.

After the dancing had gone on for a while, everyone decided to take a break, and they figured they needed some more humor. My boss decided that I could handle it. And so the microphone was handed to me to entertain for another hour or so.

And entertain I did.

When I had finished and returned to my seat beside Ali Baba, he looked at me for a few seconds and, in a low voice laced with sarcasm, said, And you keep asking me if you have what it takes to be a comedian.

A warm feeling spread through me like I’d just had a hot cup of tea. In the small universe of upcoming comedians, that was one of the highest testimonials you could receive.

Now it might seem strange to you—having known me for a few years as the Teju Babyface—that I could have been so insecure. Perhaps I should explain my insecurity.

You see, I never really set out to be a comedian, not in the beginning anyway. I was going to be an actor, and after I appeared in the biggest movie of the year in 1998, Tade Ogidan’s Diamond Ring¹³ while still at the University of Lagos, I was convinced it would happen.

Well, it didn’t.

I sort of stumbled into stand-up comedy as a means of making some extra money while in school so I wouldn’t starve. (This is not an autobiography, so I will skip delving into details. I will write one someday, though, so keep your appetite sharp.)

I arrived at the doors of professional comedy to meet others who had nursed the dream of being a comedian for quite a while and had had quite a bit of practice at it. That wasn’t, however, the main reason for my insecurity. The main issue was I didn’t in any way look (or sound for that matter) like a comedian.

If you think I have a baby face because of how I appear now, you should have seen me in 1999 when I started out in the humor industry. I was a different proposition altogether. I didn’t look the part, sound the part, or have any pedigree in that area. Pedigree?

Yes, pedigree. Back then, most comedians were either from the Niger Delta area¹⁴ of Nigeria or from very humble backgrounds, facts they wore proudly on their sleeves as their qualifications to be humor merchants. I went to Corona School¹⁵ for crying out loud! Oh, and they reminded me of that fact every opportunity they got. My colleagues would always refer to me as being aje butter¹⁶—never mind the fact that I grew up in the Oshodi¹⁷ area of Lagos, which is almost as far from being aje butter as you could think. (Well, now anyway. Oshodi had some aspirations to grandeur initially if truth were to be told)

To cut a long story short, as they say, I spent my first few years as a professional comedian dealing with insecurity that stemmed from things I had no control over and could not change: my background and my looks. I would have arrived under Ali Baba’s tutelage more insecure than I did, but Basorge Tariah¹⁸ had done a good job of exorcising me of as many of those demons as he could.

Despite their best efforts, however, it was an issue I carried around with me for quite a while. In the face of rejection and other daunting challenges over the years, I was forced to deal with that question time and time again and return to the root of my initial desire to go into entertainment.

How does this concern you? Yes, you—reading this book—which I hope you bought, by the way. You need to rid yourself of that borrow mentality.

I know, without a shadow of doubt, that as a talented person, it is a question that you will ask not only at the start of whatever career you have chosen for yourself in the creative industry but also as you are faced with challenges and discouragement. Believe me: as sure as night follows day, you have my word that you will have these professional challenges. Are you on the right path? Should you be doing what you are doing? Should you be pursuing a new venture to deploy your talent or stay where you are currently cutting your teeth? How do you know if you are forcing yourself to do something that you shouldn’t?

If I have to tell you anything at all in answer to all of that, it is this: follow the low-hanging fruit.

Simply put, in my experience, life hardly ever leaves you without options. Conversely, life will

Reviews for Secrets of the Streets

[Kenye Daniel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is absolutely amazing and a sure map for any average income individual reach unprecedented levels of success