Ade Adepitan is by far one of the most admirable and inspiring sportsman and television personality in London. Adepitan,43, former basketball player and Paralympic champion shares his innermost thoughts on his childhood, his travels, British politicians, diversity schemes and the upcoming Paralympic games in Rio, September 2016.
We met in Whiteley's shopping centre, and decided to go upstairs to the top ,where the Princess Studios are located, for a less busier and quieter environment. I am automatically stunned at how Adepitan rolled himself up on to the escalator whilst sitting on his wheelchair in a fair amount of speed and no sign of a yearning for sympathy. I couldn't help but feel proud of him at that moment and also ask myself, had I been in that situation, would I have been so happy and bubbly, at the face of such physical adversity? Only Allah knows. When we had reached the top floor, he told me that he needs to go get something, and disappeared into thin air, before bustling back with a bag of popcorn or two. Everyone likes popcorn right?
Adepitan has been busy preparing for the broadcasting that will commence in Rio for the Paralympics in the coming months. He reflected on his presenting career merged with the portrayal of sports , telling me, "I like the banter, you know, whats nice is that you can inform people to understand and get to know about Paralympain sport, but also have fun at the same time, you know, because sometimes sports can be dry, and people can think, ah yeah, its about how far some man can throw something, how high some woman can jump. When you can personalise some of the stories and get to know what the people are about, and then also, have a laugh about it, yeah, that's nice."
In 2004, Adepitan represented our country's success by winning a medal at the Athens Paralympics, amongst many other achievements as a Paralympic basketball player. Despite his reputable and impressive track record, Adepitan has changed the direction of his career and renewed his interests and ambitions. He is now focusing more on recording shows and participating in the production for insightful and interesting documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. With an air of gratitude and twang of sadness in his voice, Adepitan says to me, "You can't play sport for the rest of your life, I'm an old man now, I'm 43, for sports, that's old. And also, you gotta think about the long term you know, I'm not going to be playing basketball when I'm 60, with my zimmer frame on the court. To be honest, its a hard one, to play at the top level. Its a massive commitment, so what you need to do, is find something that you can do, that gives you longevity in your career, and I think its really important. So many athletes forget about that. They think a sporting career is gonna last forever, they don't think about the future you know, you end up retiring, or you get dropped from your squad and suddenly think, oh my God what am I going to do. And that's when people get into depression and go the wrong way and all sorts of things happen, because you've gone from that high, the buzz, going to the games, having people worship you, to suddenly ... nobody knows who you are, because the next generation have come in. So for me, finding TV, and having a career in TV, has just been so important."
They say in order to know where you're going in life, you have to know where you came from - Adepitan is above all humble and reminisces about growing up in Nigeria, long before he became a renowned sports figure, despite his disability. Adepitan contracted polio at the age of fifteen months, which left him unable to use his left leg and partially unable to use his right leg. "I have a recurring dream of when I was in Nigeria, and I didn't realise it was Nigeria, because when I was younger, I used to always have this dream about trees and see this like amazing trees and this amazing rain-forest. And stupidly, as a young naive kid, I thought yeah maybe I'm dreaming about what heaven looks like. And then when my dad passed away, I went back to Nigeria to take his body back to Nigeria and when we were driving from the airport in Lagos to our hometown in Ogun State, as we were driving, I suddenly saw all these trees, which I'd be seeing in my dreams, and this was like 35 years later. I looked at it and thought, oh my God and what I realised was when I was a kid, when I was three, when my parents were taking me to the airport, we must of taken that same route and gone past those trees. I'll be looking out the window and that's the trees that I saw," he recalled with a facial expression of awe at such a miracle epiphany.
Aside from his love of nature, Adepitan takes huge pride in his appearance and health. This is quite evident in his decision to wear a trendy denim shirt and some real cool Huaraches I could see myself purchasing after our interview. He looks very healthy too and so I decide to ask him about his morning routine, as pretty much everyone successful has some sort of structure to their morning agenda, for some, if not maximised added benefit. Adepitan tells me that breakfast is the most important thing in the morning, emphasising the importance of a good and healthy meal in the early hours that will get you going for the whole day. "I'll have porridge and banana, if I've got a training session you know, because its quite quick, fast energy and not too heavy on the stomach. But then if I haven't got anything serious coming up and I've got time, then I'll have scrambled eggs, its a bit of protein in the morning. I used to have cereals, but then I realised cereals got too much sugar .. there's nothing wrong with sugar, like look, I'm having popcorn here," he told me.
Though Adepitan has made a name for himself in the television industry, I get him to reflect on his previous sportsmanship and achievements."It was everything I dreamt of doing my whole life. It took me over 12 years to get into the team. I got dropped so many times, I was told I wasn't good enough so many times. I had to leave home,because my parents thought I was wasting my time, trying to compete in Paralympic sport, because they were just like, you should go to university, get a job, earn some money, not mess about playing wheelchair basketball. So to finally get there, to go to the games, to go to the opening ceremony, with a 100,000 people cheering me, it was mind blowing. Its not often many people in this world can say their dreams have come true, for me, it happened, at the Paralympics," he said reminiscing about the Paralympics in 2004 and 2005 he competed in, smiling earnestly. When asked if he has a sporting motto, Adepitan's face lit up, he gave it some thought, fingers perched on his chin and looking into air, before revealing the golden message. He told me his sporting motto is : "Never give up, don't be afraid to make mistakes and always try to be the bets you can be."
The world is currently fixated on the European Referendum, which I will touch on later, but until this week, the Rio Olympics is loosing its significance and excitement leading up to it. "I think the Paralympics will be slightly different. I think the Paralympics, even so, more than the Olympics, mainly because it isn't in London. When it was in London, it was amazing for us. Everyone was hype, everyone was like wow Usain Bolts coming to town, wow, we've got all the best Paralympians coming to town. David Weir and Ellie Simmonds and it was amazing, we was the center, of attention for the whole world. Of course games in another country, in another continent, where the time zone is completely different, its gonna have a different impact for us. So, I think you're mainly gonna have the hardcore sports people who are gonna love it and then you're gonna have some people that were there, who are converted into sports, they love sports since 2012, who'd be hanging on, because they want to find out how the people there at 2012 are doing. In terms of the Paralympics, it'll be important, because its an opportunity to change perceptions and spread the word of the Paralympics and the knowledge of disability to another continent, coz [sic] I don't think people in Brazil ... athletes in Brazil are treated in the same way, as perhaps they are over here. Its not perfect in the UK, but I think sport is sometimes a great way to change people's mindsets and perceptions of disability, " he said passionately.
We touched on the ongoing debate about whether or not and how perceptions towards disabled people have changed in recent years. Referring to the Paralympics alone, Ade explained that perceptions towards disabled people can be quite problematic and complicated. He goes on to say that this is because disabled people feel pressurised to perform at the highest maximum level and anything short of that automatically becomes a dismissal and point of scorn or humour. "Some disabled people have felt that the Paralympics has made them feel inadequate. If you're not gonna think the man on the street can run as fast as Usain Bolt, so why you gonna think every disabled person can run as fast as a Paralympian, its just weird. People are all individuals, what you gotta remember is the Olympics and the Paralympics is the shop window, its the very top sport, its something for everyone to aspire to, something to inspire people, and ultimately what we should be doing and what I hoped the Paralympics would be doing, is make people look beyond disability and look at the person," he said sadly.
Positive discrimination is now a set initiative/scheme implemented by many organisations, Adepitan coming from an ethnic minority and disabled background himself, I thought it'd be interesting to hear his opinions on whether or not it can ever be counter-productive. This comes to light as I have been noticing fellow white brothers and sisters being dismissed at the expense of not meeting the 'ethnic minority' band and think this is unfair. "Being black and disabled, I know there's so many obstacles you have to overcome, in order to get anywhere in this world. Listen, to me, in an ideal world, we shouldn't have positive discrimination. In an ideal world, people can turn up and they can get a job on their talent, but as we all know, this isn't an ideal world, this is not a fair world and I'm sure you're probably fed up of this, even though you're younger than me,"he told me studiously. Adepitan eagerly went on to discuss the importance of diversity for society, particularly the medium of television, which is supposed to reflect the very type of society it mirrors on the screen. Ironically, this is not often the case with film castings and productions, but nevertheless is getting better. "I very rarely see Black people in production or Black directors, or Black cameramen or camerawoman, I don't think I've seen a Black head of .. or Asian head of many of the TV channels in this country and I'm not saying you need that to change things, but I think it will help. I mean I still look at all the channels,12,3 and 4, and you know, the majority of people don't look like me, don't speak like me," he told me about his observations of the current stage of diversity on screen. He went on to tell me, " A young me, growing up, on TV, I didn't see anyone that looked like me, or who spoke like me, and because of that, I didn't think TV was for me."
Despite the odds against him, Adepitan forged an excellent reputation in the TV world, fronting documentaries for Channel 4 and presenting programmes for the BBC such as the travel show. He recently travelled to Rome in Italy in May, working with the BBC, creating content for the travel show. " Italy was great, we try to get under the skin of a country, its only short little pieces. One of the problems with Rome is that it has so many amazing monuments, but the government cannot afford to maintain those monuments, so they're trying to find other ways to maintain those monuments. They're crowd funding to maintain 2,000 year old monuments from the Roman Empire, which was really interesting. Its good, I enjoy the travel show coz [sic] I enjoy the team that I work with, its a really cool team, I love travelling and I love meeting new people. I love learning new things. And that's what I loved about it and its a show I can make my own, I can make suggestions on how we film stuff and I can do my own pieces to camera, so its lovely," he told me beaming with a huge smile on his face.
I asked Adepitan what is his favourite place he has travelled to and for the first time during the interview, he was speechless for a couple of minutes, before announcing, "There's so many great places, the world is a beautiful place. The world is so so so amazing, and look at me, I'm 43 years old and I travel the world and I'm still gobsmacked when I see .. Listen though, I feel like I've done so much, and when you've done so much, you can kind of think, well at some point, I'm gonna get tired of seeing these places, but you don't." I couldn't help but feel happy for Adepitan having seen so much of this beautiful, amazing world I live in. He went on saying to me, "I went to Victoria falls in Zimbabwe and to see Victoria falls, just mindblowing, whats mindblowing about it, is the size and the scale, the rainbow that shoos out of it, the rainforest, but also what blows my mind is thinking back and thinking what it must have been like for the first people who saw it. For the first native people of Zimbabwe, they would've heard the noise and come down and seen the rainforest and then they would have seen this massive chasm, the size of Oxford Street and twice the height and just with water, they would've been like Raaah."
Only five days ago, Britain voted to opt out of the European union and this has seen the country in absolute turmoil, with many political figures deciding to resign from their posts. Amongst many is our fellow Prime Minister, David Cameron declaring that the country could do with fresh new leadership, due to the Brexit victory for the leave campaign. Prior to the EU referendum vote, I had asked Adepitan his opinions and thoughts. "I'd say stay in, because I think .. I think our politicians and a lot of people in the OUT campaign are saying, well the EU is this organization that is corrupt, hasn't got British interests and that Britain is better if it was separate from the EU and we can go out there and do trade with nations outside the EU. I always think coming from team sports, you're always better as a group and there are people who say you can't negotiate with the EU. Our politicians voted them in, they've gone to the best universities, they're meant to be intelligent people. If you can't go in and do negotiations to make the EU work for us, then whats the point of you being a politician. And if you can't make things work together, how can we trust you to do it, when we are independent on our own. I mean, to me, it seems like you're taking the easy option, you're shirking out, its your job as a politician, to go out and make trade agreements, or make our country as strong as it can be," he explained earnestly.
Not so long ago, not Britain alone, but the whole world mourned the tragic death of renowned boxer and revolutionary figure, Muhammad Ali's death earlier on this month, on June the 3rd 2016. Adepitan and I are big fans of Ali and we really took pride and motivation in talking about Ali's legacy and impact on ordinary people and their lives. "Muhammad Ali was just huge, Muhammad Ali ... I never thought I would feel so emotional about someone who passed away who I had never met. I met him briefly and saw him from a distance, I spoke to him actually, but he had so many people around him. I kind of think I was star-struck, I don't think I made any sort of sense, when I spoke to him. This would have been 15 years ago, maybe longer, he had so many people around him, he was so tired. This was in London, he came down for his birthday, they had some birthday celebration for him, some sort of promotion and there was so much press, the guy was tired. Muhammad Ali came from a time when the USA was segregated, where as a Black person, you couldn't go to certain shops, you couldn't get on certain buses. You couldn't go to certain parts of the country and people were being lynched, because of the color of their skin. He becomes world champion, makes a lot of money, he could've easily said you know what, I'm alright, I'm alright, I may be Black, but I'm alright, I'm rollin with my money and my belt, I'm world champion. But actually he felt the need to stand up for his people and talk about discrimination and to talk about things that people were scared to talk about. And to me, that was inspirational, in a country, where it was dangerous to be Black, at a time when it was dangerous to be Black. He was prepared to do that, he didn't have to, and for me, that was inspirational. It was amazing. In the 70s, 80s, you never saw Black people on TV and if you did, they were usually doing negative things. He's this beautiful, good looking, tall lad, a guy who is amazing at what he did, he was articulate. No one ever got the better of him when he done talk shows. He was the life and soul, he made you feel proud to be Black. He made you feel like you can be Black and you can be intelligent, you can be Black and you can be successful. You can be Black and you don't have to be what they think you are. You can be a poet, and you can be anything. To give me that message as a young boy growing up in East London, I'm forever grateful and I don't think he actually views or actually knew, maybe he did, how many people in the world he touched. People who he just gave that stardust to," he said passionately, almost emotional.
Overall, Adepitan has a warm vibe that anyone around him can feel and comes across as a people's person. "I like the human race, because I find us interesting and for all the faults that we have, there are incredible people who you meet, just defy odds and do amazing things. I was in Malawi, I met people who were loosing their eyesight, becoming blind, because they couldn't afford to go hospital and get Cataract operations. The sheer will power and resilience these people had were incredible. I was in Jamaica and I spent two weeks with a group of transgender and/or gay guys who were forced to live in a sewer and one of the guys said, 'I still have massive love for God and the Church and religion, he said the God who's out there, loves him and knows about him and believes in him and every Sunday, he would take a church service and that was one of the most powerful moments for me. It was seeing those guys signing hymns in the sewer," he told me, before going on to end our conversational with a beautiful statement. "For all the badness we have in the human race, we have so much good," he said. I automatically went into reflection mode - Adepitan is a powerful speaker. But not only that, he is articulate, outspoken,inspirational and talented in his sportsmanship.
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We met in Whiteley's shopping centre, and decided to go upstairs to the top ,where the Princess Studios are located, for a less busier and quieter environment. I am automatically stunned at how Adepitan rolled himself up on to the escalator whilst sitting on his wheelchair in a fair amount of speed and no sign of a yearning for sympathy. I couldn't help but feel proud of him at that moment and also ask myself, had I been in that situation, would I have been so happy and bubbly, at the face of such physical adversity? Only Allah knows. When we had reached the top floor, he told me that he needs to go get something, and disappeared into thin air, before bustling back with a bag of popcorn or two. Everyone likes popcorn right?
Adepitan has been busy preparing for the broadcasting that will commence in Rio for the Paralympics in the coming months. He reflected on his presenting career merged with the portrayal of sports , telling me, "I like the banter, you know, whats nice is that you can inform people to understand and get to know about Paralympain sport, but also have fun at the same time, you know, because sometimes sports can be dry, and people can think, ah yeah, its about how far some man can throw something, how high some woman can jump. When you can personalise some of the stories and get to know what the people are about, and then also, have a laugh about it, yeah, that's nice."
In 2004, Adepitan represented our country's success by winning a medal at the Athens Paralympics, amongst many other achievements as a Paralympic basketball player. Despite his reputable and impressive track record, Adepitan has changed the direction of his career and renewed his interests and ambitions. He is now focusing more on recording shows and participating in the production for insightful and interesting documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. With an air of gratitude and twang of sadness in his voice, Adepitan says to me, "You can't play sport for the rest of your life, I'm an old man now, I'm 43, for sports, that's old. And also, you gotta think about the long term you know, I'm not going to be playing basketball when I'm 60, with my zimmer frame on the court. To be honest, its a hard one, to play at the top level. Its a massive commitment, so what you need to do, is find something that you can do, that gives you longevity in your career, and I think its really important. So many athletes forget about that. They think a sporting career is gonna last forever, they don't think about the future you know, you end up retiring, or you get dropped from your squad and suddenly think, oh my God what am I going to do. And that's when people get into depression and go the wrong way and all sorts of things happen, because you've gone from that high, the buzz, going to the games, having people worship you, to suddenly ... nobody knows who you are, because the next generation have come in. So for me, finding TV, and having a career in TV, has just been so important."
They say in order to know where you're going in life, you have to know where you came from - Adepitan is above all humble and reminisces about growing up in Nigeria, long before he became a renowned sports figure, despite his disability. Adepitan contracted polio at the age of fifteen months, which left him unable to use his left leg and partially unable to use his right leg. "I have a recurring dream of when I was in Nigeria, and I didn't realise it was Nigeria, because when I was younger, I used to always have this dream about trees and see this like amazing trees and this amazing rain-forest. And stupidly, as a young naive kid, I thought yeah maybe I'm dreaming about what heaven looks like. And then when my dad passed away, I went back to Nigeria to take his body back to Nigeria and when we were driving from the airport in Lagos to our hometown in Ogun State, as we were driving, I suddenly saw all these trees, which I'd be seeing in my dreams, and this was like 35 years later. I looked at it and thought, oh my God and what I realised was when I was a kid, when I was three, when my parents were taking me to the airport, we must of taken that same route and gone past those trees. I'll be looking out the window and that's the trees that I saw," he recalled with a facial expression of awe at such a miracle epiphany.
Aside from his love of nature, Adepitan takes huge pride in his appearance and health. This is quite evident in his decision to wear a trendy denim shirt and some real cool Huaraches I could see myself purchasing after our interview. He looks very healthy too and so I decide to ask him about his morning routine, as pretty much everyone successful has some sort of structure to their morning agenda, for some, if not maximised added benefit. Adepitan tells me that breakfast is the most important thing in the morning, emphasising the importance of a good and healthy meal in the early hours that will get you going for the whole day. "I'll have porridge and banana, if I've got a training session you know, because its quite quick, fast energy and not too heavy on the stomach. But then if I haven't got anything serious coming up and I've got time, then I'll have scrambled eggs, its a bit of protein in the morning. I used to have cereals, but then I realised cereals got too much sugar .. there's nothing wrong with sugar, like look, I'm having popcorn here," he told me.
Though Adepitan has made a name for himself in the television industry, I get him to reflect on his previous sportsmanship and achievements."It was everything I dreamt of doing my whole life. It took me over 12 years to get into the team. I got dropped so many times, I was told I wasn't good enough so many times. I had to leave home,because my parents thought I was wasting my time, trying to compete in Paralympic sport, because they were just like, you should go to university, get a job, earn some money, not mess about playing wheelchair basketball. So to finally get there, to go to the games, to go to the opening ceremony, with a 100,000 people cheering me, it was mind blowing. Its not often many people in this world can say their dreams have come true, for me, it happened, at the Paralympics," he said reminiscing about the Paralympics in 2004 and 2005 he competed in, smiling earnestly. When asked if he has a sporting motto, Adepitan's face lit up, he gave it some thought, fingers perched on his chin and looking into air, before revealing the golden message. He told me his sporting motto is : "Never give up, don't be afraid to make mistakes and always try to be the bets you can be."
The world is currently fixated on the European Referendum, which I will touch on later, but until this week, the Rio Olympics is loosing its significance and excitement leading up to it. "I think the Paralympics will be slightly different. I think the Paralympics, even so, more than the Olympics, mainly because it isn't in London. When it was in London, it was amazing for us. Everyone was hype, everyone was like wow Usain Bolts coming to town, wow, we've got all the best Paralympians coming to town. David Weir and Ellie Simmonds and it was amazing, we was the center, of attention for the whole world. Of course games in another country, in another continent, where the time zone is completely different, its gonna have a different impact for us. So, I think you're mainly gonna have the hardcore sports people who are gonna love it and then you're gonna have some people that were there, who are converted into sports, they love sports since 2012, who'd be hanging on, because they want to find out how the people there at 2012 are doing. In terms of the Paralympics, it'll be important, because its an opportunity to change perceptions and spread the word of the Paralympics and the knowledge of disability to another continent, coz [sic] I don't think people in Brazil ... athletes in Brazil are treated in the same way, as perhaps they are over here. Its not perfect in the UK, but I think sport is sometimes a great way to change people's mindsets and perceptions of disability, " he said passionately.
We touched on the ongoing debate about whether or not and how perceptions towards disabled people have changed in recent years. Referring to the Paralympics alone, Ade explained that perceptions towards disabled people can be quite problematic and complicated. He goes on to say that this is because disabled people feel pressurised to perform at the highest maximum level and anything short of that automatically becomes a dismissal and point of scorn or humour. "Some disabled people have felt that the Paralympics has made them feel inadequate. If you're not gonna think the man on the street can run as fast as Usain Bolt, so why you gonna think every disabled person can run as fast as a Paralympian, its just weird. People are all individuals, what you gotta remember is the Olympics and the Paralympics is the shop window, its the very top sport, its something for everyone to aspire to, something to inspire people, and ultimately what we should be doing and what I hoped the Paralympics would be doing, is make people look beyond disability and look at the person," he said sadly.
Positive discrimination is now a set initiative/scheme implemented by many organisations, Adepitan coming from an ethnic minority and disabled background himself, I thought it'd be interesting to hear his opinions on whether or not it can ever be counter-productive. This comes to light as I have been noticing fellow white brothers and sisters being dismissed at the expense of not meeting the 'ethnic minority' band and think this is unfair. "Being black and disabled, I know there's so many obstacles you have to overcome, in order to get anywhere in this world. Listen, to me, in an ideal world, we shouldn't have positive discrimination. In an ideal world, people can turn up and they can get a job on their talent, but as we all know, this isn't an ideal world, this is not a fair world and I'm sure you're probably fed up of this, even though you're younger than me,"he told me studiously. Adepitan eagerly went on to discuss the importance of diversity for society, particularly the medium of television, which is supposed to reflect the very type of society it mirrors on the screen. Ironically, this is not often the case with film castings and productions, but nevertheless is getting better. "I very rarely see Black people in production or Black directors, or Black cameramen or camerawoman, I don't think I've seen a Black head of .. or Asian head of many of the TV channels in this country and I'm not saying you need that to change things, but I think it will help. I mean I still look at all the channels,12,3 and 4, and you know, the majority of people don't look like me, don't speak like me," he told me about his observations of the current stage of diversity on screen. He went on to tell me, " A young me, growing up, on TV, I didn't see anyone that looked like me, or who spoke like me, and because of that, I didn't think TV was for me."
Despite the odds against him, Adepitan forged an excellent reputation in the TV world, fronting documentaries for Channel 4 and presenting programmes for the BBC such as the travel show. He recently travelled to Rome in Italy in May, working with the BBC, creating content for the travel show. " Italy was great, we try to get under the skin of a country, its only short little pieces. One of the problems with Rome is that it has so many amazing monuments, but the government cannot afford to maintain those monuments, so they're trying to find other ways to maintain those monuments. They're crowd funding to maintain 2,000 year old monuments from the Roman Empire, which was really interesting. Its good, I enjoy the travel show coz [sic] I enjoy the team that I work with, its a really cool team, I love travelling and I love meeting new people. I love learning new things. And that's what I loved about it and its a show I can make my own, I can make suggestions on how we film stuff and I can do my own pieces to camera, so its lovely," he told me beaming with a huge smile on his face.
I asked Adepitan what is his favourite place he has travelled to and for the first time during the interview, he was speechless for a couple of minutes, before announcing, "There's so many great places, the world is a beautiful place. The world is so so so amazing, and look at me, I'm 43 years old and I travel the world and I'm still gobsmacked when I see .. Listen though, I feel like I've done so much, and when you've done so much, you can kind of think, well at some point, I'm gonna get tired of seeing these places, but you don't." I couldn't help but feel happy for Adepitan having seen so much of this beautiful, amazing world I live in. He went on saying to me, "I went to Victoria falls in Zimbabwe and to see Victoria falls, just mindblowing, whats mindblowing about it, is the size and the scale, the rainbow that shoos out of it, the rainforest, but also what blows my mind is thinking back and thinking what it must have been like for the first people who saw it. For the first native people of Zimbabwe, they would've heard the noise and come down and seen the rainforest and then they would have seen this massive chasm, the size of Oxford Street and twice the height and just with water, they would've been like Raaah."
Only five days ago, Britain voted to opt out of the European union and this has seen the country in absolute turmoil, with many political figures deciding to resign from their posts. Amongst many is our fellow Prime Minister, David Cameron declaring that the country could do with fresh new leadership, due to the Brexit victory for the leave campaign. Prior to the EU referendum vote, I had asked Adepitan his opinions and thoughts. "I'd say stay in, because I think .. I think our politicians and a lot of people in the OUT campaign are saying, well the EU is this organization that is corrupt, hasn't got British interests and that Britain is better if it was separate from the EU and we can go out there and do trade with nations outside the EU. I always think coming from team sports, you're always better as a group and there are people who say you can't negotiate with the EU. Our politicians voted them in, they've gone to the best universities, they're meant to be intelligent people. If you can't go in and do negotiations to make the EU work for us, then whats the point of you being a politician. And if you can't make things work together, how can we trust you to do it, when we are independent on our own. I mean, to me, it seems like you're taking the easy option, you're shirking out, its your job as a politician, to go out and make trade agreements, or make our country as strong as it can be," he explained earnestly.
Not so long ago, not Britain alone, but the whole world mourned the tragic death of renowned boxer and revolutionary figure, Muhammad Ali's death earlier on this month, on June the 3rd 2016. Adepitan and I are big fans of Ali and we really took pride and motivation in talking about Ali's legacy and impact on ordinary people and their lives. "Muhammad Ali was just huge, Muhammad Ali ... I never thought I would feel so emotional about someone who passed away who I had never met. I met him briefly and saw him from a distance, I spoke to him actually, but he had so many people around him. I kind of think I was star-struck, I don't think I made any sort of sense, when I spoke to him. This would have been 15 years ago, maybe longer, he had so many people around him, he was so tired. This was in London, he came down for his birthday, they had some birthday celebration for him, some sort of promotion and there was so much press, the guy was tired. Muhammad Ali came from a time when the USA was segregated, where as a Black person, you couldn't go to certain shops, you couldn't get on certain buses. You couldn't go to certain parts of the country and people were being lynched, because of the color of their skin. He becomes world champion, makes a lot of money, he could've easily said you know what, I'm alright, I'm alright, I may be Black, but I'm alright, I'm rollin with my money and my belt, I'm world champion. But actually he felt the need to stand up for his people and talk about discrimination and to talk about things that people were scared to talk about. And to me, that was inspirational, in a country, where it was dangerous to be Black, at a time when it was dangerous to be Black. He was prepared to do that, he didn't have to, and for me, that was inspirational. It was amazing. In the 70s, 80s, you never saw Black people on TV and if you did, they were usually doing negative things. He's this beautiful, good looking, tall lad, a guy who is amazing at what he did, he was articulate. No one ever got the better of him when he done talk shows. He was the life and soul, he made you feel proud to be Black. He made you feel like you can be Black and you can be intelligent, you can be Black and you can be successful. You can be Black and you don't have to be what they think you are. You can be a poet, and you can be anything. To give me that message as a young boy growing up in East London, I'm forever grateful and I don't think he actually views or actually knew, maybe he did, how many people in the world he touched. People who he just gave that stardust to," he said passionately, almost emotional.
Overall, Adepitan has a warm vibe that anyone around him can feel and comes across as a people's person. "I like the human race, because I find us interesting and for all the faults that we have, there are incredible people who you meet, just defy odds and do amazing things. I was in Malawi, I met people who were loosing their eyesight, becoming blind, because they couldn't afford to go hospital and get Cataract operations. The sheer will power and resilience these people had were incredible. I was in Jamaica and I spent two weeks with a group of transgender and/or gay guys who were forced to live in a sewer and one of the guys said, 'I still have massive love for God and the Church and religion, he said the God who's out there, loves him and knows about him and believes in him and every Sunday, he would take a church service and that was one of the most powerful moments for me. It was seeing those guys signing hymns in the sewer," he told me, before going on to end our conversational with a beautiful statement. "For all the badness we have in the human race, we have so much good," he said. I automatically went into reflection mode - Adepitan is a powerful speaker. But not only that, he is articulate, outspoken,inspirational and talented in his sportsmanship.
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