For Mummy...but especially for DaGrin.

I write tonight because I do not know how else to channel this pain…this hurt! I write because I have been crying all night and would probably cry more. I write because I knew Dagrin. I write because I miss my mother. I write because I hurt.




I woke up today totally oblivious to what today represents. I have however been feeling quite withdrawn from God and all things spiritual and my ways have been giving me cause for worry. How can I come from being Pastor of the children's church to not even opening my bible? So I decided to do a fast and I prayed and asked for forgiveness and for Him to pull me closer.

I left my house after I broke my fast still oblivious to what today represents. I went for a meeting and towards the end of the meeting, my client asked me what today's date is and I said "April 22nd" then it hit me, my mother died this day 03:30 Saturday 1995. Needless to say, the meeting came to an abrupt end for me at that point. See, my mother died with me holding her and I had to break the news to her father, my grandfather. I was 14 years old. I left the venue of the meeting to go mourn what was left of today and then, I got the news, the blackberry message read 'Pls tell me its not true' and I replied 'what's not true?' He replied 'Its all over twitter that Dagrin's dead" and I said it had better not be true.

I checked twitter immediately and I didn’t see anything different from the usual banter of people tellling rumour mongers off. Then I got another message, saying 'rest in peace,Dagrin" And this source does not spread rumour partly because he is very close to the Dagrin camp. I begged him to tell me its not true and he said its true babes!!

Saying I cried my eyes out and found myself on the floor of my living room is not a situation I thought up just now,It all hit me at once!!

I was just coming home to mourn another year of my mother's absence and how she would never see my kids and all and then I hear of Dagrin's death?



Olayitan Olanipekun Oladapo a.k.a DaGrin died today at 06:48pm at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital,Idi Araba,Lagos.



I am torn! My heart bleeds! I wish I could put the pain into words but I can only weep!! I learnt years back that tears can not bring back the dead but it never stops hurting!!

I confess,I wasn’t his closest buddy but like most industry people , we knew each other. I had his number,he had mine and all that jazz. My last memory of Dagrin was at the Coca-Cola theme song launch with Banky.W,M.I ,Eldee and the industry heavy weights. I saw him park his newly acquired Nissan Maxima with his personalized plates and I told myself,'whoa! Dagrin's done good for himself,way to go boy!!' He came into the holding area a couple of hours later with his signature bodyguards . I was tickled cos he looked so small compared to his "giant" bodyguards. I had a friend with me from the states who was star struck that nite…she dragged me aside and said "I wanna take a picture with Dagrin too"

'No wahala I said! Hes cool like that!" I said. I went over to him and of course his BGs rose to the occasion,he quickly told them in Yoruba "Ha…this is my aunty o!! Ha! She is good peoples" I smiled and the guards 'sat'!! He came over with a smile and took the picture. I said thanks and he was like 'No wahala…its you now!"

That’s why it hurts!! He was simple like that!! Very friendly and I genuinely liked him!! I like what hes done with my Mother tongue….he made yoruba so cool with his music!! As I listen to his tracks tonite,playing back to back on most radio stations tonight in his honour ,tears fill my eyes and wet my keyboard….i reflect once again on the futility of this life…….Some might say he didn’t deserve to die but who deserves to die?

I thought my mother didn’t deserve to die some years back when she died at 45…she would have been 60 this year on the 18th of June…not that I'm comparing death or the gravity of it…but Dagrin must have been what 24,25 yrs old? What tha fuck?? How can Dagrin die? How? It hurts and I still don’t believe it hurts this much!!

You don’t know what its like until you lose someone….death sucks monkey balls!! And what makes it worse is..whats the guarantee we'd make heaven? Such a gruesome way to go and not make heaven on top of that?? Not good! I sincerely hope Dagrin made it right with God before he passed…so he can find the peace he truly deserves.

May God fill the void in his family. May God grant them peace. May He give them a reason to smile again. May God in His infinite mercy give them the strength to survive these times like He gave me.



I leave you with lyrics from his hit track PON PON PON!:

Awon ti Ijebu won nfi mi sere bi ifoko. Mi se agbe to lo s’oko

ti o k’oko. Iro ko, awon sisi fem u mi s’oko. Sokoyokoto, e ti mo

pe olobe lo l’oko. Omo Naija, mi o maga, mi mugu. Awon Ibo, won

nfi mi sere bi Ugwu. T’oba ri mi, wa ni o boy, se you be Igbo? Se you

be Anambra, abi you be Imo? Mo ma fi n ye won pe I be omo Ogun. I’m

a soldier boy, you call me Akojun. Last album mi to jade, won nipe

ko ta. T’oba gbo ni siyin, o ma fi hip-hop jo bata. Ile oba t’ojona,

ewa lo bu si.



O yeah. Sossick, let ‘em know we taking over mehn! You know

what it is, but we knew what it was baby. Awon ti siyin ni Naija,

emi won si ma ja. T’oma sare gbagbe bata, bi pe ki bata e ja. Olorun

sib a elomi se ninu yin, o si ni hit. T’oba to time kan, e yin bawo,

e ni le fit. E ma le. Igba yen la ma mo ojo mo bale. Ama fi rap rap yin

po, ese yin o ni bale. Ewo kin fi fale, ewo mi kin fi ale. T’oba wa

da bi iro, oya na wo je a jale. Mo ti so fun yin tele, mi o lo sibi kan

kan. Mo ti lo sodo, mo fo ori mi pelu kan-kan. Mo mu kan-kan yen

mo so s’odo, ko ba odo lo. Eni wa mi ti, a ni ronu, nibo lo lo. Anywhere

ti ba lo, mi se eran ilu kan. And anywhere ti ba, nlo, mo fe ma lo

pelu *gun shot*. Mo de ni lati get e larin osu kan. O ti di dan dan

because ota po gan.



REST IN PEACE DAGRIN...

CONTINUE TO REST IN PEACE MUMMY…Mrs Olufunmilayo Ayorinde (June 18th 1950 - April 22 1995)

Charles Carpenter's Phone.

I started to write this ..as usual with nothing in mind but just a need to put pen to paper or in my case,finger to keyboard! I just got back from spending almost a week in Abuja and i was so sure i was going to rant about the difference in lifestyle when compared to Lagos and all that crap but as i lay here in front of my lappie trying to channel my thots into words.....while the notification light on my blackberry curve 8900 is blinking at the same rate as that of an ambulance,i remember what Ellen Degeneres said last night on her self titled show on the series channel. She was talking about the intrusive nature of these modern day gadgets especially the mobile phone.  So i changed my mind and decided to talk about the blessings and sometimes,curses of the BLACKBERRY and mobile phones in general.


Does anyone remember back then when we had those dial-at-a-time desk phones? those ones that were a replica of Charles Carpenter's phone in Another Life? When that phone rang,we ran to get it cos we didnt know who was calling! There was a level of mystery and intrigue with each phone call....u didnt know who was calling.....i remember my all female cousins team running for the phone in hopes of getting to it before the all male cousins/brothers team got to the phone so they scare the caller away!! Lol!! (oh my! suddenly i feel old!!its worse to think that there are some children alive now who might not know what the f**k i'm talking about!!) Now we have caller IDs....and we get to screen calls...mschew!wheres the fun?
Dont get me wrong and please dont be like my father and think i'm against development and growth...arrgghhh!! Nothing like that!! I love my blackberry no matter how beat up it looks!! Its my nerve center!! My scheduler!! My diary! My PA!......My marketing tool!! But sometimes it does get a bit much!!
I was with my Oga the other day and he'd been talking and for my mind,i dey hear wetin him dey talk but turns out i wasnt....i was just nodding and thumbing my phone away!! I have Blackberry messenger,twitter,facebook,yahoo messenger,msn messenger and googletalk applications installed on my phone.....you can imagine the madness trying to talk to to different people on different platforms at the same time and also trying to spend quality time with your partner!! Needless to say ,he snatched the phone from me and demanded 'his' time!! lol! Poor baby! I totally understand!! I'd be livid too!!


What can be done to balance maintaining our 'human-ness' and moving with the times? I for one,dont want to lose those things that made me,moulded me into what or who i am. I'd hate it if my children grew up this way with almost zero human contact!! Everything is Myspace,Facebook,Blackberry,Googletalk/Buzz,Skype......we've almost lost that which binds us as a people all in the name of building a global village!! What gargantuan good has that done us? How has that friend in America helped me find fuel during fuel scarcity in Nigeria? How has that friend i met on twitter who lives in South Africa being the shoulder  i needed to cry on when my heart was broken? How has my husband being able to get me preggers via Skype? SMH.....yeah thats from the new age web lingo too .....it means Shaking My Head!!! Its great to see how the world has developed...its also sad to see how much we have lost...allowed to slip away!! Technology/Development etc...are neccessary evils just like...MEN!!

Is contentment the over-ambitious man's equivalent of mediocrity?

When I was 20...which was like 9 years ago,i had a conversation with myself and set some rules/objectives for myself! I said to me if my love life was still shitty by the time i hit the big 30,i'd adopt and i'd only adopt because assuredly i'd be able to pay my unborn child's school fees and all what not,i'd have a great job..one that i loved and a good apartment and at least a good car.

Thing is i'm almost 30,will be 30 next year.i work for myself in an industry that believes paying your dues is the same thing as working tirelessly while kissing all the asses along the way without getting paid for it so yeah,i work very hard but i'm broke. Love life is ....yeah u guessed it....still shittty,which only means one thing...i cant have nor adopt a child cos i cant take care of myself not to talk of a child who cant tell you what he/she wants till shes  spent about 3yrs on earth!!

So heres the thing...i'm not a worrier hence my confidence that i might not die from hypertension but sometimes these things do get to you. The pressure mounting from family bout your age as if you've lost track of time and you dont even realise your own age.......the pressure from your married friends and the constant e-invites for weddings from friends on Facebook! You might stay strong and smile but in the end,it does get to you cos nobody likes to be lonely (i like to be alone but not lonely sha!) so in the face of all these,u still have to work and get paid and look nice.

I'm not going to dwell on this issue..like a friend,Bez,once told me,'maybe you should use another yardstick for ur goals' and thats exactly what i'm going to do! Everywhere i turn i see my friends who were blushing brides at the time of getting married but are now these empty shells just existing!! I see their husbands shamelessly cheating on them and in no time ,the marriages are over even before it started.

I see 35yr olds who are jobless and holding on to the last shred of hope that life's got to offer. I see people struggling to eat daily. I see women whose monthly spending money is what i blow in less than a week!

I am grateful for my life but in the light of this,i can only ask God to continually show me what my life would be like if i didnt use the opportunities i was given properly!

I might not have a BMW 5 series but i know how to drive and i have a car to drive.

I might not have my own rented apartment,but i have a roof over my head.

I might not have the latest shoes or clothes or even fashionably correct but i'm not without!

I might not have a man to call my own in the real sense  of it,but i am happy and my decisions are so far not based on the presence nor absence of a man in it!

Though,some very competitive people would say one should aspire for more,compare yourself to the successful people they might say!......even i have said it to me several times but at the end of the day,the question always still remains 'Is contentment now mediocrity?'

Lord help me to understand and know the difference.

I am a very competitive person and always want more...to achieve better than the next person. To be better than the guy next to me but now my prayer is for God to grant me the ability to know when to stop.

Maybe some of us are meant to excel at something more than the other (s). Marriage instead of a career1 Career instead of your marriage! Singledom instead of marriage! Alone instead of lonely!

I compare myself to those i think i'm better than or my situation is better than because it makes me appreciate my current situation and do everything not to lose the opportunity i've been given - the chance to make it all better.

I compare my life's situation not because its a mediocre thing to do to use people you are more fortunate than as yardstick...but because it helps me reflect and appreciate how far i've come.