Ebuka Obi-Uchendu goes Down Memory Lane as He Celebrates 10th Anniversary as Host of “Rubbin’ Minds”

Ebuka Obi-Uchendu is celebrating his 10th anniversary as host “Rubbin’ Minds” and in this special edition, he’s interviewed by media personality and content creator Enioluwa Adeoluwa.

Ebuka discusses his time on the show, growing into it, controversial moments, balancing handling this show and his many other endeavours, advice to young people, lessons he’s learned, memorable interviews and lots more.

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

10 years on “Rubbin’ Minds”

It was 10 years on the 6th of January and I remember my very first show and how nervous I was. I tried to look for it on YouTube a few days ago but I couldn’t find it. Thankfully! I am hoping it was cropped off the internet.

10 years has been quite a ride. I started off the show at a time when I had no experience of live television and live television is completely different from anything. You work on TV, you produce content, you know that live television is a completely different ball game. So it was quite a challenge at the start but I always say it’s my probably my favourite show to do these days. I enjoy it. Nothing teaches me lessons and just general knowledge more than this show.

On what makes it different with every new interview:

I am always excited when people surprise me. Hopefully mostly good. I have had a few who have come here and I thought they were going to be a certain way and I am just like “Oh, wow! You are quite intense or quite diverse or quite deep with your thoughts.”

Advice to young people:

It depends of what career path you’re choosing. These times are quite different from when I started. I did my first TV show completely in 2006. It was a game show on NTA and back then, you had 3,4,5 television channels that you could work with. There was nothing like podcasting or vlogging or content creation. Now, there’s a lot more variety and options to explore. Then, the fight was more about trying to get a platform. These days, the fight is about creating your brand if you can’t get on a platform and see where things take you.

So, I think I am also learning from young people to be honest because it was a completely different time and it’s just how you guy go for it. Back then, I don’t know that a lot of us could have just woken up and said yeah, I want to start something. Maybe because the platforms were not there. I am also learning from that.

Most importantly, what I would say to a lot of people who are starting off in whatever career it is right now is to understand that some of these things might not always work as quickly as you think. I have a lot of conversations with people in their early to mid 20s and sometimes I am honestly disheartened by some of the things I hear. The aspiration to own certain things before I am 25 or be at a certain point in my career at this certain age. You know, there’s this belief that by the time you’re 30, this world is over. Oh my God, I haven’t done anything. At 30 I wasn’t working. I had no job at 30. I can look at now and laugh but I had worked from 23-28. I was having a good run. I had three TV shows at the time. At 28 I moved to the United States to get a masters degree. I came back and I was unemployed for a year and a half. Literally, I had no job so I wasn’t make any money.

So, the idea that you have to be this person at a certain age, I think the pressure is a lot. I don’t know that it’s ever going to go away because we live in a world that everything is in your face so it’s harder to look away or fight it. But it’s just to understand that things sometimes take time.

Watch the full interview here.