I almost committed suicide, became a houseboy at 12 – Tim Godfrey

‘Na ra’ crooner, Tim Godfrey  has shared his grass  to grace story. The acclaimed musician and director of RoX Music noted that  he once  worked as a houseboy.

According to him: “Working as a houseboy was not an embarrassing experience but a painful one. I was always beaten and abused. There was nothing fun about the experience. I was flogged until I bled. I never stole and was not disobedient but it was not a good experience. I remember one day I ran away from my master’s house and I almost committed suicide. I was like ‘this life is not worth it. If I go back to my parents, this man will come for me again, because that was about the fourth time I was running away from his house’. It was a nightmare staying with him. I couldn’t watch television, listen to radio or play around with friends. I was just there washing, cleaning and sweeping. I became a houseboy at the age of 12 due to crippling poverty, he said.

On how he started music, Godfrey said his music voyage started in a Lagos church located in Oshodi


“One day, when I was very hungry, I just barged into a church at Oshodi and told them I could handle their music and make it different. They did not answer me the first time, so I began to attend their rehearsals, and the third time they gave me a chance. Because I play five musical instruments including bass guitar, lead guitar and piano, I just mesmerised them; they were shocked! That was how they employed me and I remember my first salary was N3,000. I was very excited because I was hungry and broke. People don’t know all these stories. They think I just popped out of the blue and stumbled into success. And so, I was like ‘if one church can pay me N3,000, why not try another church and make N6,000?’ I started focusing more on music, that was how I got many churches to employ me and I was making N9,000 a month, before another church invited me and paid me N10,000 per month.

“I was working my life out everyday. I was doing vigil after vigil. I did not even want to be an artiste, I just wanted to be a music director, train people vocally and stuff, but later, everything just changed. God kept expanding the dream and it is getting bigger everyday”