Also, don’t make Nigerian prince jokes to your next Nigerian acquaintance. Nigerians are probably tired of hearing them. It’s a super basic joke.

Back in the 80s, I’ collected ‘Nigerian prince’ emails, often responding to them to see that their next step might be (I’d often ask them for money so I could open a bank account). Email was a relatively new thing, although I’d been on various networks since the late 70s (the ‘Inter’ part came later).

I was at an airport with my wife hustling to our connecting flight. There was a large Black man with an accent I thought I recognized. I asked him if he was WC (Western Caribbean), he said no, Nigeria in a beautiful deep voice. Without thinking, I responded ‘Oh! I think I know someone there!’ He asked who might that be. I responded ‘Well… he’s some kind of prince, trying to get money out of the country….’

The man responded with about the most beautiful laughter I’ve ever heard, sort of a Platonic ideal of laughter: deep, mellow, melodious. I can still hear it when I think about that incident. If there are more folks in Nigeria who sound like that, I’d like to go, just to listen.

That was about 40 years ago. If they’re still hearing it, yeah, it’s old.