Uche Okonkwo’s collection A Kind of Madness is filled with nuanced and moving stories of modern Nigeria.
Publisher’s Weekly wrote of the book:
“Okonkwo has a Chekhovian eye for the tangle of internal motivations and assumptions that steer her characters. . . .Readers will be eager for more of Okonkwo’s artful writing.”
In her own words, here is Uche Okonkwo’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection A Kind of Madness:
A Kind of Madness is set in Nigeria, and it tells of the lives of people trying to survive fraught relationships, petty betrayals, and the big and small things that can drive us to madness.
The stories in this collection came together in the space of over a decade—during which I had lived on three continents and my music tastes had changed somewhat—and so putting together a representative playlist for this book felt anything but straightforward. All of this is complicated by my habit of avoiding music while I write; silence has always been one of the big facilitators of writing, for me. And so I had some decisions to make: should I choose songs based on where I was geographically at certain times in the last ten years? Should I think about the characters and what songs they might enjoy, what songs might describe their experiences, their failings? Should I pick some of my past and current favorite songs and think about how they might have influenced these stories, even if subconsciously? I ended up with a strange mix of all of the above.
“Subway” by Aṣa
Aṣa’s music has been a part of my life for a long time. Her eponymous first album remains a favorite of mine, and I had a hard time picking one song from it (honorable mention for “Bibanke”). I ended up choosing “Subway,” for its plaintive melody and the wariness of its lyrics, which I think is fitting for the many betrayals in A Kind of Madness.
“Sun” by Narcy
I discovered this song by Iraqi rapper, Narcy, from watching the TV series, Ramy, and fell in love with it. I like to imagine better fathers for the boys in A Kind of Madness. I like to imagine these fathers rapping the adoring lyrics, “I call my son sun coz he shine like one,” to their sons and meaning it.
“Future Love Paradise” by Seal
I will listen to anything by Seal; his voice is absolutely transcendent. The part of me that always wants the best for my characters—even though they don’t often get or deserve said best—wishes these lyrics could be true for them:
“I’ll do anything
Just to make the world peaceful
Just to make life wonderful
I will drown all your sorrows
In a future love paradise”
“Connect” by Phyno
This one is for Mama Udoka in “Nwunye Belgium.” I can just see her shaking her waist to this song when she thinks she has made it big by snagging a son in law from Belgium. This song by Igbo rapper, Phyno, is the perfect soundtrack for Mama Udoka’s good days. Like Phyno, she “Started from the bottom now [she’s] running the city.” Except she never gets to run the city. Or, in her case, the village.
“Don’t Leave Home” by Dido
For some reason, this song conjures up Adanna’s mother in “Burning” in my mind: the pain and fieriness of her love, how it swallows everything, the irony of how Adanna’s mother could never be Adanna’s safety, even though her mother would swear otherwise.
“Unleash the Dragon” by Sisqó
This one is for my boarding school days, and for the stories that came out of them. “Unleash the Dragon” was one of those songs that was loved and feared: there were claims that by singing the lyrics you were summoning demons from hell, and so we made up “Christian” versions of the song so we could enjoy it without our souls being in jeopardy. Honorable mentions also by Sisqó: “Thong Song,” “Got to Get It,” and “Dance for Me.” My boarding school experience would not have been the same without Sisqó.
“Karishika” by Falz (ft. Phyno and Chigurl)
Demons, witches, spirit wives, queens of coasts, this song has them all. Named after a 1998 Nigerian horror movie in which demonic femme fatale, Karishika, roams about destroying lives, this song inevitably plays in my head when I think about the wily protagonist in “Long Hair” and her shenanigans that throw her school into chaos.
“Aliens” by Coldplay (Markus Dravs Remix)
This song in which a family of aliens is trying to make it home seems like a fitting one for Buchi in “Shadow,” an alien amongst his own family.
“Armchairs” by Andrew Bird
I only discovered Andrew Bird in 2022, but the mournful violins and lyrics of “Armchair” seem to have been made for Alfonso, my preacher protagonist from “The Harvest.”
“Grab hold of your bootstraps and pull like hell
Until gravity feels sorry for you and lets you go
As if you lack the proper chemicals to know, oh
The way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low”
“Rat Race” by The Mandators
Released in 1988, this song was one of the soundtracks to my childhood. I rediscovered it recently and played it on repeat for hours. Sadly, the lyrics remain all too relevant to Nigeria’s current state, decades after its release. I can imagine a cynical D’boy, perhaps a few years older than when we meet him in “Debris,” feeling a strong, painful kinship with the singers.
“Be Calm” by Fun
I have memories of long winter walks in Blacksburg, Virginia, with this song for company as stories took shape in my mind.
“Los Ageless” by St. Vincent
I first heard this song on an episode of Bojack Horseman and it was instant love. For a song that seems to be about LA, I found some of the lyrics so resonant, particularly the closing refrain (some versions of the song seem to not contain this):
“I guess that’s just me, honey, I guess that’s how I’m built
I try to tell you I love you and it comes out all sick”
Uche Okonkwo’s stories have been published in A Public Space, One Story, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Zyzzyva, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, and Lagos Noir, among others. A former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and resident at Art Omi, she is a recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy, a Steinbeck Fellowship, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Okonkwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently pursuing a creative writing PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A Kind of Madness is her debut short story collection.