Loving in common

Finding other ways to connect when words fail

Photo by Marcela Laskoski on Unsplash

I look like my father, allegedly. To circumvent that, I’ve grown my hair out, whilst he remains bald by choice. You might be able to connect the dots based on our looks and realise, oh, that’s his son, but on paper, we couldn’t be further apart.

For starters, he enjoys football, and I’m more of a basketball fan. He’s a religious Chelsea fan, and I’m a lukewarm Philadelphia 76ers fan; my virtual attendance is dependent on whether I’m bothered to stay up and catch the games. My father, on the other hand, is a dedicated fan, still paying for Sky TV so that he can watch games on Sky Sports, even though the rest of the house uses streaming services. He’s a man of limited words, and I’m a writer, yapper. He studied art at a degree level, and I draw stickmen with three legs…and so on and so forth. So, there’s that.

Beyond his paternal duties to make sure I get home safely every night, my dad and I don’t talk much, and it’s not out of animosity. I remember the time I was curious about how speech formed in his head, and he revealed that he thinks in Yoruba and translates it into English. So, he sometimes struggles to express himself in English, as there might not be an English equivalent for what he’s thinking. But the one thing we do understand about each other is music, which is a gift he’s given not only to me but also to my little sister.

In 2008, I’m scrawny and full of energy, sitting in the bleachers of our local leisure centre, waiting for my swimming lesson. A pack of jawbreakers costs 20p and Fredo chocolate bars are less than whatever extortionate price they are now—a Gen Alpha fever dream. My dad is watching my brothers swim with a slight look of concern on his face. He doesn’t like the pool because he has traumatic memories attached to big bodies of water. That event is also why he is so adamant that all four of us learn how to swim. I’m hard to entertain, and he has parted ways with his phone to keep me quiet. I click the app with two quavers joined together and see three songs listed. Year 3000 by Busted, Right Now (nah nah nah) by Akon and Sweet Dreams by Beyoncé. I don’t have a phone at this time, and all I do is read, but because I’m so annoying and so expensive, I have already wolfed down the new book my mum bought me the week before. Now, there is nothing new for me to read. My dad hands me his earphones. The rest is history.

As I grew, I became more aware of the things he liked to listen to. In his car was a mixture of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, P-Square, Craig David, JLS, and much more. We were never alone in his car. I would grow up to learn that my dad was a frequent party-goer before I was born, and that disco music made him move, even if he was the only one dancing at the function.

January 2026, I’m cooking in the kitchen, reminding myself I have to wash up. This feels masochistic. I have my speaker with me and since my Dad and sister are also in the kitchen, I play songs that we love in common and for the next fifteen minutes, we’re singing together, jumping from Akon to Rihanna to Bruno Mars, and during that moment I realised why my Dad and I were interchangeable as people to some; why they would hear me speak and know I am his son. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but he had given me music. That was his language, his invitation to be like him. I will never forget that moment.

We have found a way to connect beyond words, and this has helped me appreciate our similarities as well as our differences. No matter what I do to make sure I don’t look like him, there will always be something inside us both that will always be the same because he gave it to me.