Eldee Writes On Life As A Dad & Husband

In a new article published on his blog titled ‘My Name is Dabiri, Lanre Dabiri,’ Eldee who has once graced the cover of Motherhood In-Style Magazine with his beautiful family opened up on being a family man and how it has influenced his career.

Read excerpt below:

…It is really interesting how different my life is now. I used to live in a house with at least four or five other adults and now it’s just me and my girls. I used to get out of bed when I felt like it, now if I don’t get up at 8am, my kids will be late for school. I used to be out club hopping all night, every weekend, and now I can’t stand loud music for more than an hour or two. Since I started having kids, my routine has adjusted to accommodate a lot more family time. I’m much more domesticated now and I’m loving every minute of it. When I had my first daughter in 2009 I was still very active as a musician and record label exec. I remember being in and out of studio while my wife was pregnant. I also remember constantly being on the road touring, from nationwide radio and club tours, to the US, and the UK tour of late 2010.  Touring took me away from home for extended periods. I remember being home with my family for no more than two weeks at a time for almost the entire year. While I enjoyed meeting fans, performing and collaborating with artists from all over the world, I missed spending quality time with my girls. I’m blessed to have the most amazing wife anyone could ask for. She was there from the very beginning of my professional journey as a musician in 1998, and she never complained because she believed in me, a young man living his dream and following his passion. She never once complained about the late nights, the constant trips, the ever-ringing phones, the constant dinner meetings at the house where she had to cook and host my sometimes annoying guests. Some of the people I was constantly surrounded with were creative jerks but she never once complained, I appreciate her for that. Over time, I began to feel the need to spend more and more time with my family, so I chose to re-evaluate my commitment to my passion of being an active musician. An opportunity came in 2012 to expand the record label and sign new artists which I did, hoping to step away from active performance and spend more of my newly acquired free time developing new talent. My undeniable album was scheduled to be my last studio album and I figured it would be easier for me to be the label boss in order to spend more time doing the more domestic things that are now top priority. Long story short, the partnership to expand the label didn’t work out as planned because partner/investor commitments never quite came through as promised. It put a strain on me emotionally and financially, and eventually I started thinking to myself “…maybe the universe is speaking to me, could this could be a cue to step back and re-evaluate my goals? … Is there a greater purpose for me out there that I have yet to explore?”. I decided to take a break from it all by the end of 2012. We were pregnant with the second baby and I realized how much my wife needed me, nothing was more important to me at that time than my family. I spent a lot more time with my wife and my first daughter, I gotta tell you, watching her grow is the most beautiful thing in the world. With Toke my second daughter on the way, I had to re-channel my creative energy and focus on finding a new and meaningful purpose. I couldn’t afford to be away from them, so whatever my new challenge had in store, it had to fit within my new schedule. That is when I began exploring some of my side projects and I zoomed in on a solution I had been working on for a few years on the side, Playdata…Look up playdata when you have a moment. Through it all, I have had more time with my family,… I have learned to enjoy the serenity I once knew as a young boy growing up in Kaduna. My relationship with close and extended family has never been better…