Sly tells me at Jimmy Jatts 25th anniversary event, that he needed me to come on the show and talk Nigerian hiphop like it used to be with Def O clan, Nitro, Swat root, trybes men etc. I was excited. It never held because I was busy with mine He called me two more times, yet a no show from my end. Then next, he is sick and in a some private hospital. Wow! I have to go see him. I said that to myself three times but my struggle with my own thing in the way again. Good time to call at least right? Well, I didn’t because I was always hoping to show face the next day.
I get a call saying, prayers needed to be intensified as he was moving to a specialist in the teaching hospital. The rare attack on his spinal cord had spread to his lungs and brain. So I say anyhow today is a must o. Let me just be done in the evening. And then the call comes in..Sly is dead.
How am I ever going to think of sly without some guilt. One phone call with encouraging words might have freed this weight. Too late. I must carry it because I thought sly would always be there, I can always fix things.
Big lie! Nobody would always be there and anything can happen to anybody at anytime. Sly, hallucinating from tuberculosis of the spinal cord. How? This man was all over the place in February.
Lesson learnt in pain. Please do not let the sly’s in your world go before you try to mend a fence, resolve a difference, see to a need, be a good son, inlaw, brother or friend. You never know my dear, what do you owe who? Love, attention, care, an apology? What are you waiting for. Act now.