“At the beginning of that week, I had sent her a message saying, after life you will be remembered for the problems you created or solved.” With this rather prophetic statement, Dipo Filani, a pastor and founder, Overcomers Ministry, an evangelical and deliverance ministry, might have inadvertently touched on the fate that later befell his daughter, Susan Oluwabimpe Harvey, 31-year-old singer popularly known as Goldie, towards the end of that week. By Thursday, February 14, Goldie’s younger brother had put a call through to the father. His tone was frantic. Goldie was complaining of a severe headache and needed prayers. Before the father could muster a response, Goldie herself had snatched the phone, asking her father to please pray for her. Now, that was strange for Goldie was not given to her father’s religious inclinations.
As it turned out, that was the last time Filani would hear his daughter’s voice. Few minutes after the call, Goldie, who was born on October 23, 1981, passed on leaving behind a legacy of a successful, albeit budding, music career as well as a good dose of controversies.
And it could not have been otherwise. She had the world at her feet. Good looks, talents and both local and continental acclaim. By the time she was buried on Monday, February 25, she had accumulated several awards and costumes not common for many 31-year-olds. In fact, in an interview she granted a national newspaper in 2012, Goldie had remarked, “If I wore a different pair of shoes every day for 365 days, I wouldn’t have to repeat any at any point in time.”
True, for Goldie indeed stood out of the pack with her fashion sense and taste for the extravagant. But she also had her own share of controversies, including her rumoured love affair with Prezzo, the Kenyan musician she met at the Big Brother Africa House in 2012; what many described as her rather hidden marriage to Andrew Harvey, the Briton who had lived in Nigeria for 18 years; as well as insinuations that she might have distracted the man from his previous marriage, among others.
But in this interview with her father who retired as head of Treasury, Access Bank, before going into full-time pastoral duties, he talks to Folashade Adebayo, staff writer, about his relationship with his late daughter, his disagreements with her choice of career and clears the air on many of the controversies that have trailed the late singer.
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