As a kid, Sade Adu was the woman I wanted to marry when I become an adult, and it was in that light that I followed her and her career, not just like any other fan of her, and/or her music. I cannot now remember if it was I who got enchanted by her on my own, or that I got so enamoured by her after getting introduced to her by my late elder sister's love for her music back in the day. She was one of the few things that we both agreed on. As infantile as this may seem, even as I navigated the uncertainties of teen age, after knowing Santa was no real dude, I still felt Sade was talking to me in her love songs, and she was just waiting for me, at the right time, to come rescue her in my shining armour, from the castle where she's been held by some wicked witch, guarded by a fire-spitting dragon. Her agelessness didn't also help matters, as she seemed set in time in new videos, whenever she made a new one.


I'm particularly glad that for once I'm writing about a musician that I love, and it's not because the person is dead. How I managed to not talk about those bests while they lived beats me, except that it goes to show how important Sade has been in my life without her having not the slightest hint about it. Unlike many other musicians I knew and listened to from my childhood, I didn't have her tapes, in the early years. I didn't have to. "Brother Kehinde" Akinsola, a neighbour was always playing her song, which is how my elder sister also got to like Sade, though now that I think about it, some other thought is coming to my head. Parties organized by Wale Solomon (our landlord's son, back in the heady Akoka days) with his DJ friend (and I think that must've been DJ Jimmy Jatt) always had Sade Adu on the playlist, with more than five of her songs from dusk, to before dawn.

https://twitter.com/DummyMag/status/1350521370317348865?s=09

Also, she was always on my favourite pastime at the time, on TV. Which was where I fell in love, and vowed to marry her in future, the likelihood of which is now almost impossible (like my plans to have Morocco Maduka sing at my birthday party, which will not now happen as he's dead), even though "impossible, in its real sense, is nothing". Even as I qwerty this, there's this very small glimmer of hope, that she'll see this, and just decide to allow me propose to her, and have us wedded even if it is for just a few hours, hoping that somehow we'd get around the legalese hovering around our present relationships, including my wifes', since we'd probably be getting back to them after we must've had our few hours together. I was very disappointed when I learnt Sade was a mother, and this didn't even come to me immediately it happened, rather long after it happened, but even that wasn't enough to stop me fantasising about her. So, I simply just started following news about her, and then about her daughter, who she interestingly named the female version of my name. Again, it felt that she was sending me a signal, without her knowing it.


Imagine how happy I was to learn that Mickaila's (before she became transgender and changed her name to a males', in keeping with her new gender) father wasn't in their lives again, that was how hopeful I was that things between us may just have some light at the end of this very long tunnel, even though this behaviour was the sort that Ghaniyah warned me against, with an insult when she called me an "òkóbó". It did however come to pass, that when I stopped fantasising about females without doing anything about it, especially not talking about it openly, I could never bring myself to stop as regards Sade, as I was unashamedly verbose about it, not the way those who are starstruck go about it, but in the way a lover goes about someone with whom s/he is in love with.


So, while Sade remained unreachable, I decided to sow my wild oats, get experienced before our meeting, while gaining an insight into the minds of females in love from the lyrics of her songs. I'm sure 'Labinjo must've have endured so much pain seeing me cornering his CD player while we were roomies in med school, listening to Sade's love songs when he could've been "thugging" with Tupac's epistles, like the ardent disciple of the late rapper that he is. If you didn't know, it was me Sade was talking about in "By Your Side",


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8QJmI_V3j4

whether you believe that, or not, is your business, not mine. That as well as many other songs of hers, ministered (and still do) to me as I careered through the more than four decades of my existence. I would be going through a situation, and because as an insomniac I couldn't sleep over it, but after listening to a Sade, I'd feel so much better, not because the problem was solved, but that someone else seemed to have gone through something similar, and seemed to have kinda gotten over it, and that would be all I'd need to face the time, and get over it.


When Sade did "King Of Sorrow", I felt at the time, that she'd by some telepathic means appropriated the title from me, because it was at a time it seemed the only way to describe myself. Things were falling apart around me, and it looked like I was paying for everyone else's sins. Interestingly, she didn't even use the word "Queen", seeing as she is female, which meant I could sing the whole song without changing a word for gender sakes. That scenario further entrenched in me the thought, that Sade and I had something for each other, even if she didn't know it, and may never know it. The


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF7yuNg_zWE

fact that I have now come to not be obsessed with seeing her physically must mean that I've understood that soul mates may not necessarily be in touch with each other in any way. Our souls have always been in contact, and I find that very satisfactory, enough to wish for Her the best of her Heart's desires on Her Birthday.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.celebsnetworthtoday.com


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SADE ADU https://madukovich./2021/01/17/happy-birthday-sade-adu/