Four Years!! Remembering Dagrin: His Life, Death, And Legacy
Today, Tuesday April 22, 2014 marks
four whole years since Olaitan Oladapo Olaonipekun better known as Dagrin
passed away.
How he died:
Dagrin died at 6:00PM on Thursday,
April 22 – exactly eight days after he was involved in a ghastly accident in
front of Alakara Police station, off Agege motor road, Mushin, Lagos.
The late rapper’s car, a Nissan
Maxima 2008 model
ran into a parked lorry in front of Alakara Police station,
Mushin. He was initially admitted at Tai Solarin Hospital, Mushin before he was
transferred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi Araba where
Doctors made serious efforts to save his life.
He was admitted at the Intensive
Care Unit and operated upon, and later moved to the private wing of the
hospital where he died! Doctors at the Lagos State Teaching Hospital LUTH said
he survived nine attacks before he finally gave up during the 10th attack. The
nation was thrown into mourning; those who didn’t know the rapper Dagrin were
forced to (Like me, I didn’t know him till he passed on).
His early years:
He started rapping about the age of
14. Dagrin would be at every Hip-Hop show in Lagos, trying to get a
three-minute spot on stage’.
Dagrin struggled for years, hopping
from one studio to the other, in a quest to record a music album. It took a few
years for the struggling act that had been desperately looking for financial
support to seal a record deal. In 2006, he released his debut ‘Still on the
Matter’ under LEO Entertainment which was mildly received…
His relationship with his Parents:
Dagrin allegedly had a strained
relationship with his father, Comrade Olaniyi Abolaji Olanipekun but he was
very close with his mother Mrs Olanipekun.
His lovelife: Before his death,
Dagrin had also broken ties with his girlfriend Chichi. The couple had dated
for seven years but Chichi kept pressuring for more than a mere commitment,
friends of the couple say. ‘Dagrin at that time wasn’t ready for marriage so he
let her go’, online reports disclosed.
3years after his death:
Three years after, things seem to
have changed, Dagrin’s death suddenly inspired a whole lot of rappers to hit
the studio spitting in Yoruba language. Now we have the likes of Olamide,
BaseOne, Tipsy, Jyhbo, Seriki obviously inspired by the general himself Barack
O’grin.
The Dagrin Documentary:
In April 2012, Video director GINI
released a documentary ‘Remembering Dagrin’, to mark the second anniversary of
the rapper’s death. The one-hour plus clip featured never-before-seen clips and
images of Dagrin. It also contained interviews with individuals that crossed
the path of the young man and contributed to his rise to fame in the Nigerian
music industry.
The one who received all the
attention isn’t here to see it… Dagrin toiled and toiled, touched the tip of
success and was going for the gusto only to lose it all in the most shocking of
ways…
May his soul rest in peace..
#PrayforDagrin
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