RIP The Child of Lov

I have to say, I was extremely surprised and saddened when I heard about the death of Belgian R'n'B/funk artist The Child of Lov, real name Cole Williams, due to complications during surgery. I have never claimed to be his biggest fan, but I found he was quite a fascinating man capable of creating fantastically danceable tunes which I'm sure would please almost anyone's ear. 
When he first emerged onto the music scene, he was 'anonymous', not revealing his actual name and just referring to himself with his stage name. Then one day, he decided it was time to step out of the shadows and show himself to the world. I remember one of the first times his picture was used in NME magazine - my friend Louisa was cutting it up to put some of the pictures on her wall when we found this tiny picture of him with his little ponytail and moustache. She cut it out and put it on one of the empty faces of The Strokes on their poster for Comedown Machine, so it looked like The Child Of Lov had a huge hairdo in comparison to the size of his face. We both found it hilarious (I promise we're not 5) and, since it didn't say his name in the magazine, we decided upon calling him 'Manuel'. It suited him! 

The actual picture Louisa cut out from the magazine that day.

After that, we both started listening to a few of his songs (his album wasn't out at that time) and, thankfully, we really enjoyed them! We wanted to put music to his face and (made up) name and we were very glad that it was actually good music, as we'd have been very disappointed if our beloved Manuel didn't have the talent we were hoping for. We'd listen to, and speak about, him often and whenever we did there'd be at least once when we'd say "Manuellll, he's popping taaags" from Thrift Shop. Eventually his popularity started to build and I ended up with a pretty big picture of him on my wall; huge, in fact, compared to the tiny picture we found on that fateful day. 
The Child Of Lov passed away on December 10th, 2013. When I heard the news, I immediately told Louisa, who was just as shocked and upset as me. It was a loss, far too young, of a wonderful musician, and I, for one, will miss that oh-so-interesting face.

I hope you enjoyed my anecdote and will remember Cole, The Child of Lov, Manuel or whatever name you'd like to call him, as fondly as I will. Written by Molly McGrath