Upon his return from the USA, he returned to his village, Oguta in Imo State, where he spent seven years. He believed he was made for music but his meeting with Tyna Onwudiwe in the village changed his life.
“I will never forget Tyna Onwudiwe. While in the village, after my return from overseas, I refused to work although jobs were provided for me. I told my parents that I knew what I wanted.
I wanted to become Charlie Boy. I became Charlie Boy to tell the timid and myopic Nigerians that you have the right to be what you want to be, and that one must not follow only a ‘zombie’ way of thinking and doing things. Everybody cannot be the same and everybody can’t follow the same way. You can’t say I am crazy because I wear this, except you too are crazy.
“When in the village for seven years after I returned from America, I insisted that I was going to play music. I told my parents and calmly accepted to go my way when they told me to do so. It was Tyna who came to rescue me from the village to Lagos. I liked her because she was like a perfect woman. She encouraged me that I was going to succeed in my venture. There were many people who saw her as a mad woman. This was the only woman that would spend her last kobo on somebody else. Tyna didn’t want me to waste away in the village, so, she tricked me to Lagos that a recording company was going to wax my music. I was shocked that she had prepared an accommodation for me, with one year rent already paid for. If not for her I would have languished in jail. Man is a God to another man.”
.png)
