Woke up to the devastating news that music legend, actor, journalist Onyeka Onwenu has passed away. She slumped after a performance. Was rushed to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, aged 72. She was otherwise healthy, and like most legends prefer, she died doing what she loved to do: belting out songs. I have had several encounters with Onyeka Nwenu. As a child waiting for the television broadcast to begin at 4 pm in the 90s, her music was a staple, a palate cleanser before they began regular programming. This was when I committed the entire music, including the guitar riffs of her tune, Iyogogo. In that music video, she was beautiful and fluent in Igbo. And could she sing, hitting those high notes.  As an adolescent obsessing about Nigerian music, she is one of those female musicians who came into their own in the 80s. Like her contemporaries, she straddled genres: gospel, soul and my preferred highlife. Her music was preoccupied with the ramifications of love. The romantic kind, the filial type, of country too. She was a fixture of the spotlight, and she spoke quite eloquently about the politics of the day. She participated in the 1998 controversial campaign for Nigerian dictator Gen Sani Abacha alongside other high-profile musicians like Salawu Abeni and Sir Shina Peters. Admittedly, it was not her most gracious moment, and a cohort of commentators unfairly have made this gracious moment the basis of their genuflection. I wouldn't say I liked her politics, especially because she used her platform to amplify her views. But her music, hook it in my cubital fossa, all day. To the final encounter, a physical one. Circa 2018, I saw her at the airport in Abuja, waiting in a queue to board a plane. My friend was keen to take a picture with her; he handed me the phone, and I took a picture of them. He swiftly offered to switch sides so that I could take one too. At her side, she chastised me for not greeting her. It was all happening fast, plus I was starstruck. I apologised. She offered a reassuring maternal smile and allowed a welfie to be taken. Listening to her tune, dancing in the sun, and recollecting this memory on a humid bus in NW London, my heart goes out to her loved ones.