I’m a bipolar person but forget the dictionary explanation: having or relating to two poles or extremities. That definition is weak and it makes me look down upon the wordsmith who coined the term. A person with a bipolar personality is one who is uptown and downtown, same way. And that’s me. No one can take that off of me. This is a character trait that is very vital for someone like me, who wants to rule the world when my time eventually arrives because I’m chosen and indeed many say I’m chosen. I fit like a glove when I gladiate down to the ghetto because I got the vibes, which explains why in the ghetto I’m better known as Vibes Machine as opposed to Moses Opobo. When I’m down in the ghetto, the ghetto yutes, sorry, youths accord me what I will call a verbal standing ovation, for lack of a better description. By verbal standing ovation I mean to say that they chant “Vibes Machine” excitedly and on the tops of their voices from the street corner, then they rush to fist-bump with me. See, I’m quite good with my fist-bumps, and just one half-hearted fist-bump of mine weighs all of five kilograms. Also I know how to shine ghetto lights bright, although I have a short fuse. But even with this superb ghetto intro, this is not to say that I’ll coil my tail meekly like a coward when I hit uptown. This is because, and I repeat, all of 50 % of me is uptown. Yea we be sophistocrat like that. I have a handful of young uptown friends who know little-to-nothing about ghetto life, and who frequently sneak into the gate at home to pick my spinach-nourished brains and to tap into my extensive gangster music collection. My young uptown Rwandan friends recently introduced me to a new genre of music called “Trap”. The first time I heard it I naturally thought it was Rap music they were talking about. Then my young uptown Rwandan friends made the distinction when they urged me to “forget Rap when there’s Trap”. But because I’m not really privy to the affairs and life-longings of young uptown people, (I’m 50 % downtown), I still don’t know what Trap music is all about. But that’s not all. My young and cool uptown friends do not have “business ideas” because that’s Old Skool. Instead they have “concepts”. They increasingly want to work from shared and urbane co-working spaces like The Innovation Village at the Kigali Public Library and The Office and Impact Hub Kigali, both in Kiyovu of the rich and privileged. Others want to be “developers” and that’s why they flock to K-Lab in Kacyiru to develop “apps”. They do not own companies, they have “start-ups”. They do not buy or use “airtime”, they buy and use “bundles”. My young uptown friends do not listen to music from Ama G The Black or Rafiki Choga Style or Danny Vumbi. They listen to the incarcerated and popular and controversial Dancehall artist Vybz Kartel aka Werl’ Boss aka Addi di Teacha aka Gaza General. They are in love with Kartel’s hardcore Gangster lyrics. They also listen to Popcaan and Alkaline and Mavado and Jason de Rulo and Whiz Khalifa and Lil Wayne, and of course Adele. They love Adele because of Hello. My uptown friends do not have the time for that clownish Nigerian radio and disco candy music whose lyrics go something like; “Are you gonna dance-oh, if I show you my pocket …”. They say that’s stuff for house maids. They drink Heineken and Double Black and when it comes to cigarettes, it has to be Dunhill Switch.
