Until 2017 I made my living running music groups at the Priory Hospital, and as a lead facilitator for The London School of Samba.
Then in May of that year my life changed forever when I fell ill and was rushed to hospital by ambulance.
There I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease which quickly led to a severe brain injury caused by a combination of Bacterial Meningitis and Encephalitis with Severe Sepsis.
I was in a coma for 3 weeks and friends and family were told I was expected to die. However thanks to the medical team (who saved my life on several occasions) I survived, but when I woke up from the coma I had lost my memory, so I didn't who or where I was, or what my life had been like.
One morning in hospital, a song came into my mind, and as I wrote the words that came back to me, I realised it was a song I had once written. After being discharged, l I found more songs I'd written in the past and decided to somehow find a way to record them.
Not able to run the business anymore, I began to sell my possessions to pay for the recordings and the year after, I ran a crowdfunding campaign as I had nothing left to sell!
Just some of the wonderful musicians who play on the recordings and have helped bring the songs to life are: Mel Gaynor of Simple Minds on drums, Michael Bailey (Chaka Khan) on bass, Tim Cansfield (The Bee Gees) on guitar, and Toby Baker, who has recorded with Eric Clapton amongst many others, on keyboards.
While in hospital, i also discovered that I had played the part of a world percussionist. When I came home it was to find a large collection of instruments, fully set up and taking up most of the room in the flat.
It took a couple of years before I was able to learn (or relearn) how to play drums and percussion again, but I truly believe playing the rhythms has helped my brain heal, and become stronger.
Together the instruments are known as The Gathering of Drums and were played as part of my first TEDx talk given at Edinburgh University in 2022..
My first book titled 'Born at 48' is due to be self-published in the spring of 2024
Radio interviews
Talking to Nana Akua about what it was like coming out of a coma and how the songs came to life
Listen to the 2022 interview with Leslie Tate on Radio Dacorum, where we play both Santa Monica and Long TIme for the first time on radio.
My first ever radio interview was with Leslie Tate on Radiio Dacorum in 2019.
The episode is titled 'Music and Memory Loss.
Newspaper and blog aritcles
Read the 2022 article written by Christopher Day in
The Comet
Read the 2019 interview with
Jacob Thorburn in
The Stevenage Comet
