Why I went back to Chris Okotie after I closed down the church I established with Soul E” – Queen Ure

In a very recent interview with PUNCH, Banker cum singer Ure Okezie popularly referred to as Queen Ure, talked about her career, her relationship with Chris Okotie, the church she established with Soul E and her dissolved marriage to hip hop artiste, Soul E. You have been involved in many vocations including banking, preaching, music and coaching. Where exactly is your focus? I am a natural scientist. A scientist is basically inquisitive. I always want to find out things, experiment, theorise and come out with some thesis. My best subject as a student in primary and secondary school was mathematics. I have never done anything that I don’t enjoy and I believe that life is in stages. Banking is fantastic and the corporate world has taught me to be very goal oriented. Can you be described as a jack of all trades and master of none? God has endowed me with a lot of talents. I train and build minds with my coaching skill. The pastoral ministry is all about reaching out and impacting lives and there are various means through which we reach out. It could be through the pulpit, music or books. It only becomes a religious thing when you talk about ministry in terms of pulpit. I may be a jack of all trades as you say but I am equally a master of all. At what point in your life did you realise that you were gifted? I discovered my talents from childhood, but of all the different talents, music is one thing that has always been with me. Even as a banker, I always sang during our end-of-year parties. I have been writing songs from childhood but nothing came out of them because I never recorded them. I have always known I would do music in a huge capacity but I just did not know when. When the time came, I made up my mind not to let the talent waste. I just dived headlong into music because anything worth doing is worth doing well. It is not too good for one to have lovely songs that would make an impact in the industry, and then just let the talent to lie fallow. Music comes to me naturally; I don’t have to think before writing a song because as things happen, songs come. I am still writing songs even as we speak. How would you describe your kind of music? I am a great and good singer; I don’t limit myself to a particular style and name of music. When I am happy, I sing a happy song, when I am sad, I sing a sad song. Whichever way the inspiration comes, I just flow with it. Where do you really belong, gospel or secular music genre? I am a secular artiste. I don’t want to tag myself a gospel artiste because that is not what I am. I can sing anything. You established a church, Love Villa, which you later closed down. What happened to the members? They went to other churches, which is fine by me. Church is about people, it is not a building. I am not a religious person; I am quite spiritual. I have impacted lives during the period God gave me and what I put in them will stay forever. I ministered in the church for about three and a half years and I believe that was the way God wanted it. God can use one to do a particular thing at a particular time. One doesn’t necessarily have to do that for the rest of one’s life. Was that why you went back to the Household of God church? I went back to Pastor Chris Okotie-led church because that was my church before I started my ministry. I mean, I wouldn’t go to another church after my pastoral work. Why would I do that? The church is like a home to me, most of the people are my friends, my sisters and brothers, so it is only natural that I should return there