We are. We all know and love Fife Dog as the Funky Diabetic, but his life with diabetes, he was a type 1 diabetic, was harder than he let on, harder than he let us know.

His mother, Cheryl Boyce Taylor, is also a type 1 diabetic,

and she walked that walk with him

and tried to help him every day of his life.

When did Malik's diabetes diagnosis come?

Okay, I'm trying to remember if it was between the first,

and I think it was the first and second album I think that

would be like 90 90 or 91 I'm not remembering all the dates now but I remember he came home from tour. My mother was a

nurse and he came home from tour and he said to my mother I think I had diabetes because you know I'm also a type 1 diabetic and he

grew up watching me taking my insulin being careful about what I ate, and I discuss all of these things with

him, what was happening, why, what signs to look for.

And so he knew what signs to look for and so he knew what signs to look for and sure enough he came in and he

told my mother and she tested him and his sugar was like 400 or something like that.

And the normal sugar would be in the low 100s.

90 to 120 maybe. the two one twenty one twenty maybe

looking back he had you do you remember seeing

signs of it before

he realized it? No, I didn't because I was, I had already moved to Brooklyn and he was already touring and traveling.

So this, and my mom lived in Queens a house he grew up in.

So that's where when he was home he really preferred

to be in his old bedroom in the house with his grandmother.

So he was home with her and he told her that

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