It was harmattan, the season in Nigeria where people preferred to stay indoor due to the cool dry wind.

But not Ella, she preferred the wind to prickle her skin than to be in the company of her family.

Family was meant to hold you up and offer you a hand when you fall.

Her's had given her little or no support and when she had fallen they scorned at her and walked over her outstretched hand.

Ella took slow painful strides under the scorching sun.

She had all hit an all time low.

That moment when everything seems bleak, even under the sharp rays of the sun.

She felt not a thing in all different versions of her world would change her predicament.

She had put in all her effort but still graduated college with an E.

It was hard enough for graduates with a first class to get a job talk less of a Pass result.

She studied, attended tutorials and watched YouTube videos but it was not enough.

She often wondered if something was wrong with her.

Her parents were never a support system, they neither rendered help or comfort but they were always full of reproof.

Suicide was an option she thought about but was never brave enough to take.

Not that she wouldn't leap and take the chance to plummet into the dark abyss of afterlife or whatever it was that happened when you die, she lacked the courage to do such.

And then the game changer struck, with twice as much impact that she had plummet.

It was notification, a single beep on her phone that would alter the course of her life.

Having heard over time how sonorous her voice was, she decided to send a video recording of her singing her heart out.

An original that she wrote.

The song was so honest and heartfelt that she burst into tears mid performance.

The video was so raw of emotions that she was embarrassed after sending it in, but she had nothing to loose. No one was going to see it anyway or so she thought.

Music had been her outlet, her only friend, one that wouldn't judge her or give up on her.

Each lyric she would engrave on a blank sheet would embrace her and hug her warmly with a mug of hot chocolate. It would allow her express herself without fear of reproach.

Never in a thousand years did she think she would emerge winner of Sony Music Africa Star Search.

Out of millions of youth she had emerged winner.

She thought it a ruse but a little part of her mind wandered to the limitless possibilities.

And so it began.

Ella Alle, the next big female popstar Africa had ever seen.