The Beat FM studio smelled like expensive air freshener and morning coffee. Frosh sat in the guest chair, his white shirt pressed by someone from the label, his hands folded in his lap to keep them from shaking. The host was a woman named Toolz sharp voice, sharper questions, the kind of person who had interviewed global stars and could smell a lie before it left your mouth. She smiled when Frosh walked in, but it was a professional smile. The real one would come later, or not at all.

"Frosh," she said, adjusting her headphones. "Welcome to the morning show."

"Thank you for having me."

"Let’s start with the numbers. Your EP, RISE, just crossed eighty-seven million streams. Eighty-seven million. How does that feel for a young man who, by all accounts, was recording covers in a bathroom six months ago?"

Frosh felt the number hit his chest. Eighty-seven million. He knew the count was climbing Akin sent updates every few days but hearing it out loud in a studio with producers watching through glass made it sound fictional.

"It feels..." He paused, searching for words that weren’t rehearsed. "It feels like I went to sleep in one life and woke up in another. But I keep checking same face in the mirror. Same me. Just... the world got bigger around me."

Toolz leaned forward. "I want to go back. Before the numbers. Before JD Records. Before Blake flew to Lagos to sing on your track. Who was Frosh?"

Frosh looked at his hands. The studio went quiet except for the hum of equipment.

"I was a boy about to be evicted," he said quietly. "Living in a single room with my little sister. She’s eleven. My parent are no more just me and my sister. We had two mattresses on the floor, a hot plate, and a bathroom where I recorded covers on a cracked phone. I would sing while my sister sat outside the door and listened. She didn’t know if the words were good. She just knew her brother was singing."

Toolz didn’t interrupt.

"The eviction notice came on a Tuesday," Frosh continued. "The landlord came with boys to warn me that if i didnt leave before three days he would evict me personally. My sister saw it. She didn’t cry. She just looked at me and said, ’Are we going to be okay?’ I told her yes. I didn’t know if it was true. That night, I recorded three covers back-to-back. Something in me knew that if I stopped singing, I would have to face the fact that I had no plan. No money. No way out."

He looked up at Toolz. The professional smile was gone. She was just listening now.

"Then JD Records called. Not directly — through a man named Sheun. He said they had been watching my content. My covers. He said someone wanted to meet me. I thought it was a joke. Nobody wanted to meet me. I was a kid who sang in bathrooms and posted skits about being broke. But I went anyway. Because when you’re drowning, you grab every hand that’s offered and funny how the first time i went i was unable to see him i thought that they didnt want me again only to be called later and here i am."

"And when you found out it was Dayo?" Toolz asked. "Jason Dayo. Global superstar. owner of the label. The man who wrote your songs. What was that like?"

Frosh laughed. It was a real laugh, surprised and embarrassed. "I didn’t believe it. Even when I was sitting in the studio listening to songs that he had written specifically for me — for *my* voice — I kept thinking there was a mistake. That someone would walk in and say, ’Sorry, wrong kid.’ But nobody walked in. The songs kept playing. And they sounded like... like someone had seen me before I saw myself."

He shifted in his chair. "Meeting Dayo... I haven’t met him in person yet. Just phone calls. But the first time he called me, after my EP dropped, he said six words. ’Track four is why they stayed.’ Track four is *Sister* the only song I wrote myself. About my sister. About our eviction. About her bringing me jollof wrapped in foil while I sang in that bathroom. He didn’t have to say more than that. He knew. He always knew."

Toolz was quiet for a moment. Then: "Your sister. What’s her name?"

"Blessing."

"How is Blessing handling all of this? Billboard mentions. Your face on posters?"

Frosh smiled. The first genuine smile since he sat down. "She’s handling it better than me. Her friends at school call her ’Frosh’s sister’ now. She’s famous by association. She came home last week and told me that Tolu this boy in her class who used to bully her asked for her autograph. I asked her what she did. She said she told him, ’Autographs cost extra. Bring jollof next time.’ That’s my sister. She’s eleven and already negotiating."

Toolz laughed. It was a real laugh, loud enough that the producer in the glass room smiled too.

"Let’s talk about the giving back," Toolz said. "Because people have been talking about this online. You didn’t just take the money and run. You went back to your aunt the one who helped you and Blessing when things were darkest. Tell us about that."

Frosh nodded. "Aunty Nkechi. She took us in when my parents died and still opened her door even when her house was still crowded. She fed us from her own small business a provisions shop in Mushin. She never asked for anything back. Just prayed for us. When the first advance came from JD Records, I didn’t buy a car. I didn’t buy clothes. I bought her a new apartment. Two bedrooms, running water, proper kitchen. Then I stocked a new shop for her — bigger than the old one. Provisions, dry goods, everything. I told her she never has to worry about rent again. She cried for an hour. Then she slapped my head and said, ’Now you have to marry well.’ That’s Aunty Nkechi. She’ll cry about a new house and then criticize your life choices in the same breath."

The studio was warm now. Toolz was leaning back, relaxed.

"And the hood?" she asked. "I saw pictures. You went back to Agege. People were surprised."

"I went back because I owe them," Frosh said. "Not everyone. But specific people. Mama Chinedu — she sold me credit on loan when I had zero naira in my account, because she believed I’d pay her back. I did, eventually. But she believed me when I was nobody. And Brother Tope — he let me use his generator to charge my phone when Nepa took light for three days straight. Without that charge, I couldn’t have posted the cover that JD Records saw. I call names because i rember vividly like it was yestareday how hard life was for me and my little sister so yes I have to give back to those who showed me kindness at my lowest. "

Toolz shook her head slowly. "You’re nineteen years old, Frosh. Maybe twenty. And you’re talking about eighty-seven million streams, buying apartments. How are you processing all of this?"

Frosh looked out the studio window at Lagos traffic below. The city moved like it always had chaotic, hungry, indifferent to who was famous and who was not.

"I don’t think I am processing it," he said honestly. "I think I’m just... doing the next thing. The interview. The song. The thank-you. I go home at night and Blessing is still sleeping on a mattress in the next room. A better mattress now. In a better apartment. But she’s still there. And I’m still her brother. And tomorrow I still have to figure out what to say next. Eighty-seven million streams doesn’t write the second album. It just means more people are waiting to hear it."

Toolz nodded. She understood that answer better than any polished quote.

"Last question," she said. "If Dayo is listening right now — and he probably is, because he seems to listen to everything — what do you say to him?"

Frosh looked directly into the microphone. The red light was on. Broadcasting live to millions.

"Thank you for seeing me in that bathroom. Thank you for writing songs that fit me before I knew who I was. Thank you for calling me after my drop and telling me track four was why they stayed. But most of all — thank you for proving that the story matters more than the statistics. I’ll try to live up to that."

Toolz smiled. The real one. "This is RISE by Frosh. Eighty-seven million streams and counting. Ladies and gentlemen, the future."

The interview ended. Frosh walked out of the studio into the Lagos heat. His phone buzzed Aunty Nkechi, sending a voice note about how she heard him on the radio and he spoke too fast and needed to enunciate more. He laughed and kept walking.

He didn’t take a car back to the apartment. He walked through Lekki, then flagged a bike to Agege. Just to see the streets. Just to remember. People recognized him now — not everyone, but enough. A girl at a traffic light screamed his name. A buka owner refused his money and gave him extra meat. Blessing’s friend Tolu was at the corner store, saw him, and froze like he was looking at a ghost.

Frosh bought Tolu a Fanta. Shook his hand. Told him to look after his sister at school.

Then he went home. Blessing was on the couch, doing homework, her small radio playing *Essence* in the background. She looked up when he walked in.

"How was it?" she asked.

"I told them about the eviction."

"Did you cry?"

"No."

"Good. Crying is for bathrooms. Not radios."

Frosh laughed and sat beside her. She went back to her homework. He went back to watching her, trying to memorize this moment — the apartment, the radio, the homework, the sister who had listened to him sing when nobody else cared.

The glow was everywhere now. In the streams. In the interviews. In the new apartment and the stocked shop and the generator for Brother Tope. But the glow didn’t warm you. It just lit everything up so you could see how far you had come — and how far you still had to go.

Frosh pulled out his phone and opened his notes app. He typed one line:

*"The light found me in the bathroom. Now I have to learn how to stand in it without closing my eyes."*

He saved it. Closed the app. And sat with his sister while the radio played his voice to a city that now knew his name.

(A/N: Shameless author asking for Golden Ticket 🎟 it doubles during this period so if I get up to ten one extra Chapter )