I remember then, the story of a boy in secondary school who, after listening to a CD disc, tried to turn it over so that he could listen to the other side. When he did that, everybody in the room laughed and called him “razz”…how could anyone possibly think of turning over a CD to listen to the other side? Everybody knew that only one side of the CD player could be played. After all that was what we were taught, that was what the cool kids knew.
But in March 2004 a group of record companies including MJJ Productions Inc. and EMI Music developed a dual CD disc that could be played on…guess what…both sides. What was laughed at in 1999 in a small room in Lagos was heralded as a ground-breaking discovery in March of 2004 in America!
Irony? I would say so…because the uncool razz boy as we would have called him…had actually thought of something revolutionary, but instead of being congratulated or encouraged he was mocked. How many times does this happen across our nation? In my opinion, I would say far too many times. We have to put a stop to that, instead of laughing, we should say, “hmmm, that is an interesting idea…why can’t the other side of a CD be played?” But we are too cool for that, so we laugh…repeating the same old mistake of not looking past the current reality or pushing the barriers.