Two weeks ago, the son of legendary musician, IK Dairo, was the guest on Your View, a daily programme aired on TV Continental. There, R&B and highlife singer, Paul I.K. Dairo a.k.a Paul Play, spoke exclusively and elaborately about his close shave with death, his re-emergence and the controversial pact with Tope Alabi’s ex pastor, Elijah Iretiola Ajanaku.
The first question he was asked dwelt on what exactly happened to him. He explained how an internal tumour suddenly appeared without symptoms for an incredibly long time until he went to South Africa to complete the music video for his last album. “I felt some pains and it became intense when I went to the convenience to ease myself. So, my friend in whose place I was at that time called his doctor. The doctor who also knew a Nigerian doctor practising there recommended me for treatment in his hospital.
After diagnosis, the Nigerian doctor told me they’d need to operate me as soon as pos- sible to remove some tumourcouldn’t remain inside me for more than one week,” Paul Play recalled. He had to halt everything he’d gone to SA to accomplish to attend to his health and after then, the healing took a while for him to return to his old vivacious self. It was while recuperating that he was attending churches for prayers and along the line, according to the velvetvoiced singer, “I met Tope Alabi who introduced me to her pastor.
Though I know she wouldn’t want me to say this, but that was truly how I met the pastor.” The news had gone viral on the internet that the singer was healed by the late Pastor Ajanaku three years ago. He was asked to shed light on whether he got healed by the pastor or not. “I had met some men of God when I returned from SA and he was just one of them. A friend of mine had kept telling me this ‘pastor wants to see you’. And one thing with me is that, when you mention God, I just feel the reverence is urgently needed.
I went and after a while, I just felt that something wasn’t right about the church. But I felt, ‘Paul, you’re in this thing already’. One thing about Christianity is that we tend to believe that men of God are very clean and can hardly be found with blemishes. God said ‘give your life to Christ’; he didn’t say give your life to a pastor.
And we must all understand this fact. Growing up, my father was a pastor, so I understand certain things to expect. So after I felt something wasn’t right, I started drawing back before I relocated to Abuja. So, when there was that messy fight it was Tope Alabi that was at the centre, I was just praying, ‘God don’t let them drag my name into it o.”
It’s often presupposed that people who suffer any form of kidney disease either smoke or drink and or make wrong lifestyle choices. On what triggered his health problem, he said: “Sometimes you can just be unlucky and have this ailment. I’m saying this because I don’t have any unhealthy lifestyle; I don’t drink and I don’t smoke.”
A caller on the phone-in programme also asked if Paul Play is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, a question that got him laughing. “You see, I’m a professional singer and I run my business based on the acceptable standards. When I’m engaged to work on advertising or anything that has to do with campaign, I have to feed my family.
The fact that I sang a song at a campaign doesn’t mean that I’m a politician or a member of any particular party.” Six years is more than enough to send an artiste into oblivion yet the Paul Play feels he’s been only away for just a few months. As to how he intend to match up with the new kids making waves in the industry where he once held sway: “If you say it is difficult to come back and then give up things will pass you by. If the likes of Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder have stood the test of time, why label yourself as old school? With a good pedigree, people will respect you and with God you can still make a comeback.
I don’t intend to stay in music for a long time,’’ he noted. He’d just released the video to his song, Fool for Love in which he starred a mulatto girl which stirred another debate about the fad for the light-skinned girls most of whom are from the west. After laughing hard about what he described as sheer misconception, he set the record straight: “I knew this question was going to crop up because when I watched the videos of most of the new acts, they mostly have white girls. And people have been asking, ‘are the black girls no longer beautiful?’ But the lady is a Somalian. Should we now say that African girls can’t be light-skinned?”
No comments:
Post a Comment