This video is part 1 of my documentary with Dami (Ibrahim Damilare Onafeko, a blind audio engineer from Nigeria making strides in the USA, as we talk about his transition from living in light to darkness. The documentary was filmed at Howard University and and a couple other locations in Washington DC while we were both attending. I got the idea to do a documentary on him while we both happened to be in the same room of a testing center one day, I saw him do some every day tasks with such ease and thought it had to be recorded, the way he has found ways and means of operating like everyone else and striving for his dreams.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
- [Coach] Yeah. Keep goin', Dami! This is a hard drill to do, but keep goin'. Now the reason we're doin' this is two things. Number one, it helps you to use those elbows to press outwards, because you gotta keep those blades, the oar locked, and the button locked into the oar lock, okay? Number two, if you really start to relax Dami, the blade's just gonna fall in the water by itself, okay? So as you come up the slide just relax and that blade's gonna just fall in there by itself, just by gravity. So you can save your energy. All right, that's good.
- [Dami] I am Ibrahim Onafeko, popularly known as Dami, a first-year Master's candidate at American University in the Audio Technology program. I am originally from Nigeria, born of Yoruba descent. I've been in the States now for about nine years, and I've been blind for about eight years. I am in the field of audio production, and I am aspiring or striving to be an imaging producer for a radio station and basically be an audio producer on a larger scale, because I still wanna do sound for movies and TV and on that note, I am who I am. Blind Magic, you know? Still living.
- People think sometimes that I'm so delicate, but I'm not. Not every blind person does and do the things that I do, but it's just me. I'm that rugged.
- [Jonathan] You're not helpless, right? That's what you're saying?
- On that, on one hand. What I'm actually saying is, you know, you see some people and you're like "Oh, he can't use the stairs." No, I use the stairs, don't come with me. I grew up in a three-story building so it is ingrained in my system. I lived in a three-story building for 12, 13 years.
- [Automated Voice] space T-A-E space M-E-C-C
- The Mecca
- Mecca I know, no! Why did I touch it? I don't want that thing to happen!
- [Automated Voice] Together we are Howard University, The Mecca.
- [Dami] Thank God.
- Yeah, I do it to the sound of The Mecca, right. Ah, I do it almost every day. Whenever I have time
- [Jonathan] Yeah.
- And I'm having time tonight.
- [Jonathan] But how do you edit?
- Computer. I'm here re-editing something. Earlier, before ... Two, three, four, five, six. Come on. This is what I use. Back in Nigeria, back when I was growing up in that building water doesn't run upstairs. We had to go fetch water downstairs, and you have to carry the water upstairs.
- [Jonathan] Were you blind at that time?
- I could see.
- [Jonathan] Oh yeah?
- I don't have a good vision, but I could see I mean, I had cataracts, I had near-sightedness, but I still see through all of that. I still struggle, man. I've always been a fighter. I've always been a fighter, man, because through my elementary school, people always wanna do stuff for me and I'm like, "No, you can't do it for me." I'm like, do it myself. This is why I'm here. So this is someone's voice, I just cut it.
- [Female Sound clip] We got hip hop, and R&B? You know it. It's the sound of The Mecca. WHBC 96.3 HD3.
- I'm still gonna work on it as it is.
- [Male Sound Clip] Now I need to pause. When you say "We got hip hop" can I pause a little bit, like,
- [Female Sound Clip] A little longer?
- [Jonathan] So how will you cut?
- So this is different. There is gonna be a music here. I have to cut this. If I start, I would do this.
- [Female Sound Clip] We got hip hop So when she said "We got hip hop", I will look for generic hip hop songs. I will put in why she say "hip hop", the word will come there. Then when she said "R&B", I will put a little bit of R&B music. Okay, this is example of it.
- [Male Sound Clip] We got hip hop! And R&B! You know it! It's the sound of The Mecca. So that is how that would come out. Yup, I love it. I love the fact that I'm doing this. It's art on its own.
- [Jonathan] For real. Yeah.
- Honestly, it's making
- [Jonathan] Something from nothing
- Yeah. It's more like a canvas now.
- [Automated Voice] On 96.3 FM. Messages. Edit.
- I'm a hustler. Hustler to the core, no doubt. I'm so different from, I mean, I'm not a citizen, that's number one. And I'm not a permanent resident, either. Every thing that come out of pocket, so hustler in every way. I have a job, I have a volunteer work, I have this that I'm into, and involved in. So sometimes when people don't know they think, "Oh, you're getting help from left, right and center" but I'm like, "Whatever, man." I don't have a chance to talk. When it comes to letting other people know, it's, I think it's just having the little things that you know will help you be things that you want, I'm moving on from there. A lot of people, maybe they want to have more than they actually need, and they don't get to do anything else, because they're waiting for this and that to happen. They're waiting for everything to be perfect, but nothing will ever be perfect. There will only be right. There will only be right that you jump out there and do something with what you have in the moment. Because life itself is damn unfair. Life is not fair. And whatever life gives you, you gotta make the most of it to the fullest. That's one thing of all I've understood, and I'm just trying not to lose what I've been able to, you know, maybe to acquire, or the level that I've come, I'm just trying to take it higher from there, because this is just the beginning. It's just the beginning. It's really just the beginning. Things are happening for me, and I thank God with the way things have been so far, and I'm trying to just keep on, I'm trying to be consistent, I'm trying to take it farther and just do greater things, you know?