When I wanted to hail Sound Sultan, or whatever, I would just send the words, “hello baale“, and he would respond. So that’s how we sort of communicated, Sound Sultan and myself.
He was indeed an icon; he was a man who showed us what being a human being was about. He was a good human being, and my only regret is that I didn’t get to know him for as long as many other people. Because I hear people talk about him and talk about how he was a long time ago, and I missed that boat. I remember how I employed a young gentleman who came up to me looking for work. So I was like, “what do you do?” He said, “I do many things. I’m a free runner; I do stunts but ask Sound Sultan; he can vouch for me.”
So I asked Sound Sultan, and he said, “Well Chi, at your own risk, you can take the guy, but hopefully he will last.” Of course, as things happened, he messed up at some point. So I called Sound Sultan on the phone. This is me trying to be very serious. I’m trying to sort of fire this guy. Sound Sultan is yelling on speakerphone.
He was like, “Is he there?” I said yes. “Put him on speaker!” I put the phone on speaker, and he said, “Bia! Did they do you from the village?” I was like, “It’s okay, calm down.” He shouted more than me, who was affected. But over time, all that I got from that was he just always wanted the best for people.
Sound Sultan collected children; he collected friends; he collected family off the streets. This young man had been on the street, and he had been with Sound Sultan for like how many years. And that’s just the person that he was.
The one thing I want to say, and I want to end with this is, death is with us everywhere we go. Death can happen at any time, but Sound Sultan was a man who put death to shame. He lived a life that put death to shame, and death is not the victor here. Death has not won anything. God gave us an angel for 40 something odd years, and the God that gave him to us decided to take him back.
So we’re all the better for knowing Sound Sultan and that he was in our lives. So the one thing if we learn anything from him is to look at each other and receive each other with love and kindness. Be aware of one another because he was aware of everybody. It didn’t matter who you were: bouncer, artiste, whatever.
You were somebody to him, and he treated every one of us like somebody. I am a much better person because Sound Sultan knew me and because he taught me just by his life how to live a life that puts death to shame.