Healed by music when doctors said it was over

November 16, 2012 

The journey of Aimee to and fro the music studio is a classical example of the healing power of music

For six years, Aimee – Rita Alakija – experienced a debilitating illness that even the cruellest mortal can hardly wish for his enemy. The lady had hitherto bubbled with life, working in the aviation, financial and broadcasting sectors. She and the people around her had thought it was a short trial when she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital.

But as tough seasons rolled on seasons for her, she found herself being transferred from one hospital to the other. That was within and outside the country, until she became what she describes as a vegetable and someone on whom doctors had given up hope.

While she would not easily open the pages of her medical experience, she concedes that the challenges culminated in issues of blood, and as she started bleeding non-stop. At the climax of it, her body became a temple of some 15 complications, while she had to take an average of 15 injections daily.

“Doctors gave up on me. There was one crucial surgery that doctors were reluctant to take me through,” Aimee says in her Queen’s English that once made her viewers’ delight on a Lagos-based national television station where she was a broadcaster.

“My doctors did their best. But they felt I wasn’t going to pull through. They were asking me: ‘Do you still want to face it?’ You know, when you have had one or more surgeries before, and you are now faced with another crucial one in the same part of the body, it looks more like a matter of death than that of life and death.”

But what makes the case of the lady that studied English and later earned a degree in Business Administration ‘funny’ is that in the heat of her ordeals, God, according to her, placed it in her heart to go and sing His praise.

Were she in the frame of mind to laugh, she probably would have done so and mockingly roll on the ground for some minutes. Which kind of spirit would contemplate that the next thing for someone who had lost all strength, who had to be helped to do virtually everything, and who was practically on doctors’ death list, was to subject herself to studio rigour?

Alakija notes, “It was like a joke. When I had all the money and connections, this didn’t come. How come that it is in the midst of illness and pain when I should sit down and feel pity for myself because of my challenges?’’

‘Unfortunately’ for her, the voice insisted that that was what she should do. That led her to another palaver on how to tell her people and the physicians that her next agenda was to produce an album and a video. Like any other person would feel, they were likely to think that the illness had probably meandered into her brain zone.

Aimee adds, “It wasn’t that I couldn’t sing. I started singing in the church as a little girl. And I grew up with love for it. I had performed alongside others in churches and concerts. But I never wanted to take it farther than that. I never wanted to become an artiste.”

She had to eventually obey ‘Him’. While it was a tug of war getting everyone convinced that studio work was the next thing, people around her also eventually conceded. Her family, she says, was there for her.

“They would take me to the studio. And we moved from one studio to the other. I couldn’t stand up in the studio. I would just lay my voice and go back.”

This is how Aimee got out her maiden baby of creativity, Lost Without You, a seven-track album recently presented in Lagos. Besides, she, in the pool of the pain, shot five of the tracks into videos that have been on air for some time. Several gospel acts that include Femi Mikal, Victor Olayeni and Rose Yusuf also performed at the album presentation.

“When I watch the videos now, it is difficult for me to explain how I came by them. When on location, they would even dress me up. Now, music gives me reason why I want to live. It has taught me how to worship God. I am also bold to say that no matter how tough the challenges one might be facing, God is faithful.”

Aimee says she is healed now. She went through the surgery and survived it. A brother of hers, Jin, wrote the songs in Lost Without You. Currently, she is working on new songs while also writing a book as she is looking forward to having another concert soon.

Apart from her arrestingly poetic voice, Aimee has an intellectual base that can help her music. Despite the peculiar nasty situation she went through while producing the album, the songs generally come out interesting. One of the tracks, Oluwa mo mi, comes in a sober and expectant mood while Good Good inspirationally asks, “Is He good to you?” In Friend, in which she features Mix Master J, the artiste goes philosophical, reasoning that a good friend is like the oil put in an engine and the sweater worn during cold season.

The title track, Lost without You, is the theme song of re-dedication which seeks to situate Jesus as the compass of the singer’s life.