My Story
My Childhood
I grew up in a part of the UK called Alcester. Where I use to live, I had some local shops and restaurants which are quite handy to be honest! Every Sunday, I would go to church in Solihull called the Renewal Church Centre. I will explain more about church, later. I also went to a nursery somewhere in 33 St Faith Road in Alcester, a few years after that, I took a bus to my primary school Welcombe Hills School.
Growing Up
After some time in Alcester, I would have my Uncle’s family from Bristol come over for a few visits and my mum and I would also go there for a few visits and it was a really great experience.
My mum raised me as a single parent. At times, she would struggle with childcare and as the struggle of childcare grew, it was difficult for her going to work and looking after me at the same time. For that reason, we moved to Bristol and it was life changing! Uncle Musa and his wife, Prudence (who were at Bristol at the time) were kind enough to let us come and live in their home with their 3 beautiful girls who are now known as my God given cousins: Sinenkhosi, Pesheya and Tiyandza. I love them so much in every angle! So we moved there to get the required childcare and my mum can start working. There was a church that they would let us go to in Broadwalk which is currently called Redcatch Community Church, there was another church called Carmel Church where they would let us have Sunday school. I was also inspired by that drummer during that time. I believe his name is Joshua and he has absolutely got the drumming game down in buckets and spades!
There’s also another church in Weston that my Uncle would take me to called the Church of the Nazarene and my Uncle (funnily enough) showed me about music and the piano at the age of 6 and I would even play it a few times at that church! It was fun!
Please note that because of my autism, I will only go to special schools where my education needs are met.
Moving on, there was also a school that I will not mention because I haven’t been in that school for that long to be honest. Here and there, I would get a little bit of bullying and it was difficult. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really great school! I hope they still have that giant mosaic of me and the other students near the entrance.
But after a year, my mum found another school that absolutely met my needs as an autistic person.
My New School
So don’t get me wrong, these schools have been great during my childhood but Venturers’ Academy was the way to go! In fact, it was previously called Merchants’ Academy. Anyway, there was some really great students and staff and they knew the support that I was looking for and they absolutely did what needed to be done! Even up to now as a Year 11 student, it is just downright fantastic! I mean it wholeheartedly and I thank every single one of you guys in the school from the teachers, the teaching assistants, the students, the pastoral managers, the office managers, and the principals. Just everybody!
Experience in Church and Spirituality
So from Renewal Solihull to Redcatch Community Church to Carmel Church to another church somewhere near Primark in City Centre and Church of the Nazarene in Weston Super Mare, I will say this, again don’t get me wrong, they were and they are really great churches but I didn’t connect that much to God. But after some time, my mum and I discovered this church in Cardiff, Wales called Assemblies Of God and that church - up to now - really brought me closer to God. After some time in the AOG Church, COVID-19 came in 2020 and we did Saturday Worship Sessions on Facebook and the “usual” Sunday services on Zoom. Then in 2021, I did a little bit of a Bible Study about the Royal Wedding Feast and I would do it weekly on Zoom. I believe we finished somewhere near the end of 2021 or near the start of 2022.
Speaking of 2021, we couldn’t go the church at Cardiff because as far as I’m aware, it got closed down after COVID-19. So in October, a new church was open in Bristol called the South Bristol Christian Centre in West Street, Bedminster.
Now that I mentioned AOG, I would love to thank Pastor Nick Dube for being my spiritual father and giving me a platform to grow my music skills in the church and gain more knowledge and strength for my spirituality. It really means a lot!
Going ahead of myself, I got baptized during the AOG Birmingham Youth Conference in August 2023 and it was life changing for me! I never thought this would be the time for me but I thought to myself, it’s about that time, so here we are!
My Discovery for Music
So going back a bit, I was really into music at a very young age. I will even say that before I was 6 years old, I had a mini drum kit that my mum got me but my neighbors did not like the sound of it, whatsoever.
So, I moved to Bristol at the age of 6 and I would go to school listening to music on the radio and then I would listen to these piano tutorials on YouTube from a channel called DPSM. These songs sounded so good! Speaking of school, I had a few piano and music theory lessons and it helped me improve here and there from my teacher called Jane, I believe.
After some time, another music teacher came and he was so full of knowledge and experience for music, Alphie Archer Alphonso! Even up to now, he helps me get every single bit of music done!
Expanding on my growth for music, piano was what I was growing my experience on, but when I was 11 years old (in 2019), we thought about getting a new instrument. My new instrument then was my bass (specifically a RockJam Full Size Sunburst Bass from Amazon) and it is coming back to me watching this bass guitarist from the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack: Teppei Kawasaki. He did an amazing job with the rest of the team!
Later during the year, I was very interested in guitars. As a matter of fact, my favourite game series is Splatoon and the music is crazy good! That was when I was interested in rock music and I wanted to give it a shot then. I also went to Alphie’s studio for some bass lessons and after we finished, I was interested in all his instruments that he had and I really wanted to try them out. So we wanted to try out his Black Fender Stratocaster with the Pedalboard and it was really good! After that, my mum and I went back and after some time, my mum and I thought about it and it was about time we got an electric guitar, the Display 4 Top Electric Guitar from Amazon. I know it’s not anything fancy but I’ve been told that you don’t need fancy things to do good music.
By the way...
The keyboard I currently own is a Yamaha DGX 660 Portable Grand Piano
I also have a Brown Sunburst Squier Bullet Telecaster from Amazon
Washburn Acoustic Guitar from the PMT store near Temple Meads
Vintage V49 Coaster 5-String Bass from Gear4Music
Eastar 37-Key Melodica from Amazon
GERUI 12 Hole Alto-C Ceramic Zelda Ocarina
3rd Avenue Ukulele from Amazon
Crystal GT-4 Acoustic Guitar as my 16th birthday gift (contribution from the people in my church, Blessing, Mary, Nana and Khetsiwe)
For recording, I used GarageBand on my iPad until I got Logic Pro on my MacBook Pro from Christmas 2021 (I still use my iPad for exporting music into YouTube videos, so we have some use there.)
So before I got the other instruments that I mentioned, I only had a bass, two electric guitars and GarageBand. There was this guy called Gabocarina96 who is so amazing at Video Game Music Covers on YouTube. He plays guitar, bass, a bit of ukulele, piano, ocarina and melodica! It’s downright fantastic what this guy can do!
There was a video on how you make video games music covers on YouTube but I barely had any of the relevant equipment. So I waited patiently until we got the right equipment and now I am here doing what I do!
The recording equipment I currently own is:
Logic Pro X (Recording Software on MacBook Pro)
Audio Technica AT2020 Microphone (with XTUGA Isolation Pop Shield / Sold separately)
The Muso Mirror (A gift invented by Alphie for my 16th gift)
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen Audio Interface
