Sneak CLT Owner Jamil Whitlow Seeks Kidney Transplant Due to Rare Condition

In just over a month, Jamil Whitlow will mark the two-year anniversary of Sneak CLT, a popular cocktail lounge he opened in Elizabeth’s Pecan Point shopping center in April 2024. 

Having spent years in corporate America before entering the hospitality industry, the opening of his own establishment was the realization of a longtime dream. As exciting as it’s been to see that dream come to fruition, however, it’s been a dream complicated by a largely unseen struggle — one that’s held him back as an entrepreneur and family man. 

In 2021, shortly before the birth of his daughter, Whitlow was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a rare but serious kidney disease that disproportionately affects African American men. 

He’s been on dialysis since January 2025, when his doctor realized he was approaching renal failure, a deadly condition in which someone’s kidneys can no longer function at a capacity needed to keep them alive. The treatments have stolen countless hours of his life since — from three to four hours a day for four days a week — sidelining him from the activities and quality time he aspires to with his wife Lara and daughter Naomi. 

Whitlow has been unable to swim with his child due to a permanent catheter that’s implanted into his chest and traveling is extremely difficult as he needs to coordinate with a dialysis center at whatever destination he wishes to visit.  

Now as he wraps up an intensive, months-long vetting process to get approved for a potential kidney donation, Whitlow is looking to the community in search of a donor who can help give him the life he’s dreamed of for years. 

“It’s a very challenging component to be someone that used to have so much freedom when it comes to everything I was doing in my life and now my life being so restrictive,” he told Queen City Nerve. “I’m not saying that getting a kidney transplant is going to completely change everything, but what a kidney transplant for me will do is give me the peace of mind that I’ve been yearning for.” 

“It’s hard to see somebody that you love who is so spectacular, it’s just really hard to see them sick,” added Lara. “I want us to be able to do the things that we love. Traveling is huge for us, showing our daughter different places and different cultures. [A kidney donation] would just be life-changing.”

It started with swollen legs

Jamil Whitlow said he’ll always remember the day he realized his jeans were fitting just a bit too tight. He knew he hadn’t gained that much weight, so he chalked it up to his recent workout routine. 

When the swelling didn’t go down, he went to urgent care, and when they couldn’t help him he checked himself into a local hospital. As it turned out, the swelling was a condition called edema, an early symptom of FSGS. 

What followed was a seemingly never-ending series of appointments with different nephrologists and other specialists. His treatments remained relatively non-invasive until January 2025, when his brush with renal failure made near-daily dialysis a necessity. 

In June, he was struck with a life-threatening staph infection, which hospitalized him for a full week and forced him to cancel his 40th birthday celebration. 

He has been seeking a donor since October 2025, though now that he’s finally nearing the end of the stringent vetting process, he’s renewing his search for potential connections. He is hoping for a living donor, as a kidney donated by a living person on average stays viable around a dozen years longer than one from a deceased person. 

The most common living organ donation, kidney donation is not shown to affect the life expectancy of the donor. 

In 2024, we spoke to local musician Krystle Baller a year after they offered one of their kidneys as a donor to help close friend Ruth Ava Lyons fight polycystic kidney disease.

Baller described how the surgery inspired them to quit smoking and drink more water. 

“All the recommendations after kidney surgery is just live a healthy life; go be a healthy person, eat healthy, don’t eat a lot of red meat,” Baller explained. “It’s all things that people are supposed to do anyway. Now I have a reason.” 

A focus on mental health

Whitlow’s reasons for wanting the donation abound, but he also hopes to someday help mentor young Black men as they navigate treatment for FSGS. As a patient himself, he’s seen firsthand how punishing the process can be to one’s mental health.  

“The physical side is the physical side, and I think if it was only the physical side that we dealt with, it wouldn’t be as hard,” he said. “Your body heals; you can get over a surgery, you can get over a couple of procedures, you can get over needles being in your body. But the mental [component] is where it’s tough.

“You spend a lot of alone time in that chair. You’re going to be going to the hospital a lot. You’re going to end up back in the hospital again for something related to your condition. Those long stays where you’re going to be sitting there for several days,” he continued. “When you hear certain information, you’re like, ‘Is my life over? Am I dying?’ It’s just a lot. So there’s a big mental piece that goes along with it that I don’t think is fully discussed.” 

For now, however, his focus remains on his family and finding a donor to help him reach a place where he can be the mentor rather than the patient. 

“A lot of people in the community have known Jamil for a really long time, and just his stride, his tenacity, his personality, his outwardness,” said Lara. “The Jamil Whitlow that everybody knows and loves, I’m not saying he’s not that person, but it’s really hard seeing him be sick and seeing him be tied to a chair when there are a million other things that I know he wants to do in his life.”

The Whitlows are asking that potential donors fill out this Atrium Health Charlotte Living Kidney Donor Questionnaire, entering Jamil’s name and date of birth at the bottom (Jamil Whitlow; July 1, 1985). You can learn more about kidney donation at this Atrium Health info page. 

All testing leading up to a donation as well as the surgery itself would be covered by the Whitlows’ insurance, according to Lara.