Ghanaian hiplife and hip-hop artiste, Michael Owusu Addo, known in showbiz as Sarkodie, has described his childhood as a “crazy and horrific moment”.
Although the one-time BET award winner was cautious not to reveal the full details in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show, he disclosed how encouragement and genuine love of parenting eluded him as he grew up with a relative at Achimota in Accra.
[contextly_sidebar id=”H6hGMM9xcPLCG6jbIl9sOjpOlks10o0m”]However the rapper says regardless of the sufferings, he kept on expressing himself through rapping even as a child.
“My growing up is a story I wouldn’t like to go too deep into. But I have a song called the Mile 7 saga. That song actually talks about my life when I was growing up. I was not with mum and dad and I was living with somebody and I know a lot of kids are going through that now and I think it’s really bad. You know what I am driving at…I was a timid kid so I never had a way of expressing myself; I am not too sociable and the only therapy I had was writing; so if I want to talk to dad or mum and I can’t see them all I do is write”.
“That’ was a crazy time; it was a horror moment; that’s what I call it. It was then I heard hiplife with Reggie Rockstone and I felt like I could relate to it as the best therapy for me. So that led me into music; I was not influenced by a friend because I had no friend rapping at the time. I was the first person in Achimota Preparatory school to rap so I was meant to do it and I have kept on and that’s the only thing I seem to have the passion for so if I keep it 100% I don’t know why I should have any failure in it” he noted.
The Rap Journey
According to Sarkodie, his music career started taking shape when he moved from Achimota to Tema.
“So when I moved from Achimota I got into music and the monetary aspect came in when it turned into a profession. People said that since I was good at it; why don’t I take it serious? And then Dr. Duncan of Adom FM then came in and that has been the aggression from that day till date. I was desperate to rap but not to come out; I just wanted any chance to rap. I even did a rap at someone’s wake-keeping with a dead body there. That’s actually the passion I had because anytime I heard people testing the microphone I wanted to do something so I forgot the dead body was there so I took the microphone and told the DJ to give me some beat to shake the place up because they normally play the songs of Esther Smith at such events. So they gave me some beats and the person’s mother was pissed off” Sarkodie narrated.
Sarkodie narrated how at one point he had to sleep with about seven people a single-room Achimota. He however said in that room, he leant how to grasp the Twi language from his friends from Kumasi that enables him rap in the dialect although his Twi is not as impeccable as that of Obrafour, Komfo Kwadei, Lord Kenya and Reggie Rockstone, who are all his role models.
“I don’t speak Twi so well like Obrafuor who can pronounce certain words. But I am good at having a very good Twi accent so it makes somebody who likes Twi appreciate it when I say something. My influences were Obrafour, Reggie Rockstone, Komfo Kwadei and Lord Kenya. I still listen to them till date. In my beginning, I was with about seven people in one room at Achimota and they were all Asantes so when they speak that’s all I knew”.
The multiple award winner is launching his new album titled ‘Mary’ this September.
This will be his fourth solo effort, following Makye in 2009, Rapperholic in 2012 and Sarkology in 2014.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/Citifmonline.com/Ghana