Damilola “Dharmie” Adelana

Adelana Oluwadamilola Ayomide — Dharmie, as the world would come to call her — was born in February 1997, into the loving home of Mr. and Mrs. Olufemi and Olukemi Adelana. She grew up in Ikorodu, Lagos, in a family where faith was not a Sunday habit but the very air they breathed. Her father served as a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and it was within those walls that she spent her earliest years: learning the songs before she understood the doctrine, and understanding the worship long before anyone taught her the word.

Those who knew her as a little girl say her voice already carried something uncommon — a distinctive, unmistakable sound that drew attention wherever she opened her mouth to sing. In the church where her father shepherded, she served through her early years, and the sanctuary became both her playground and her training ground. Lagos formed her, Ikorodu grounded her, and the house of God shaped her into the woman we celebrate.

Dharmie's journey through school was steady and purposeful. She began at Alpha Plus and Kith and Kin Nursery and Primary School, where the foundations of the girl she would become were first laid. She proceeded to Homat and Living Stone for her secondary education, building a strong academic foundation there.

She furthered her studies at Yaba College of Technology, where she earned a degree in Computer Science — a mind as sharp as her voice was sweet, equally at home behind a screen and behind a microphone.

In 2020, while the world held its breath through COVID, Dharmie met Sola Soetan — a meeting that would quietly change everything. Under his mentorship she learned the craft of songwriting: how to take what was burning in her spirit and set it to melody, how to turn devotion into verse and verse into song. He also worked with her on her voice, refining her singing and cultivating the gift already in her, directing and guiding her into greater exploits in music. The lockdown gave the world silence; Dharmie spent hers learning to fill it.

By 2021 she had begun pursuing music as a calling in earnest. In February 2022, she entered the 808080 Challenge — a contest held by Hallelujah Records, the official record label of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, in honour of the General Overseer's 80th birthday — and finished as second runner-up, her voice standing out among many.

Then, in October 2022, came Loved — her enchanting debut single, produced under the guidance of Sola Soetan: a soulful declaration of God's eternal love, inked with devotion, gratitude and wonder at His grace. It was the first public offering of a gift that had been growing quietly for years. She wrote, she sang covers, she released music — always with the dream of carrying the gospel of Jesus from Lagos to the very ends of the earth.

And her journey was still rising. Work is ongoing on her latest single, Jesus You Answered Prayers — a song whose title now reads like testimony. The release did not come in her lifetime, but the prayers it celebrates were answered all the same: she is home.

Dharmie was a diligent and dedicated professional. She served for two years at Access Bank, and later at Electra, carrying the same excellence and quiet grace into her work that she carried into her worship. She was never someone who separated her faith from her labour — every desk she sat at, every team she joined, became another small sanctuary.

She was also passionate about empowering others, and served in Women and Career under the leadership of Mrs. Jane — pouring into other women the same encouragement and belief that had been poured into her. She lifted as she climbed, and she never forgot the hands that held her up.

Dharmie was never only a singer. She wrote — blog posts that carried her reflections and her faith into the everyday corners of the internet — and she ran a T-shirt business that put Christian inspiration onto fabric, turning ordinary clothing into quiet evangelism. Words, melodies, garments: everything she touched became a vessel for the same message.

Her legacy is best said in the words written for her: she came like a dove — soft-winged and low — and roared like a lion when Heaven needed a sound. She sang not to be heard, but to make Heaven listen. Nobody who met her left the same; that is not a rumor, it is a life that fought well and served the Kingdom without needing to tell.

Loved still plays. Her covers still minister. Her writing still speaks. And somewhere beyond these skies, the girl from Ikorodu who learned to write songs in a lockdown is still singing — gentle as a dove, bold as a lion, forever worth the listening.

On Tuesday, the 1st of September, 2026, Damilola was called home to be with the Lord. She was kind, intelligent, devoted to God, and full of grace — a life that burned bright and brief, and left a warmth that will not go out.

May her gentle soul rest in perfect peace. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” — Psalm 116:15