Richard Shekari

I am Richard Shekari, a multifaceted artist and humanitarian based in Abuja, Nigeria. Born on 11 April 1981 in Bauchi, my relationship with music began early in life, long before I fully understood how deeply it would shape my identity. What started as a simple involvement in church would eventually become the foundation of my artistic journey, guiding me through seasons of devotion, rebellion, discovery, and ultimately reconciliation between two very different musical worlds. My earliest musical training came in the early 1990s when I joined the church choir as a tenor. At that age, I did not see it as training or preparation for anything greater. I simply loved the atmosphere of music in the church—the way voices blended together, the way melodies could lift the entire congregation, and the sense that music could carry prayers when words alone seemed insufficient. Singing in the choir taught me discipline, harmony, and attentiveness. I learned how voices could complement each other and how structure in music could bring order and beauty to sound. More importantly, those years instilled in me a deep awareness that music had a spiritual dimension. It was not just performance; it was communication between the human heart and the divine. The choir also taught me humility. In a choir, the individual voice is never meant to dominate the whole. Each singer contributes to something larger than themselves. This understanding would stay with me for years, even during periods when my life seemed to move far away from those early lessons. The choir did more than teach me how to sing; it introduced me to music as service, as worship, and as a way of lifting others. However, as I entered my teenage years in the late 1990s, I went through a period of rebellion that many young people experience when trying to find their place in the world. Questions about faith, authority, identity, and purpose began to stir within me. That rebellion gradually pushed me away from the church en