"Shatta Wale is one of the greatest artists in Ghana" - Wanlov

Portia Arthur

August 29, 2015 8:01 AM

Wanlov added, "there isn’t really an industry. I feel we keep losing when it comes to our identity"

Wanlov Kubolor

Wanlov ahead of EL’s was in our studios to promote the event with his group mate Mensa.

The FOKN Bois member on YFM’s told Trigmatic mentioned Shatta Wale as one of the greatest artists now.

“There isn’t really an industry. I feel we keep losing when it comes to our identity. When I started rapping I was emulating Snoop, Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli Mos Def and others, later on I started emulation Sizla and some others. Then at a point, after looking at people like Jay Z, Beenie Man, I realized these people were representing the places they came from and so I did which represented how people talked over here in Ghana here.

“For me there are some artists that are very good, Shatta Wale is one of the greatest artists we have down here; when I hear him rapping on in Ga and Pidgin, he is very excellent. I know a guy in Abeka Lapaz called Bullet, and he is a wicked Twi and Pidgin rapper but as soon as Shatta Wale came out, he also started doing Dancehall music in the Jamaican Patois. And I can’t work with Bullet on that level because if you go outside Ghana, people know how Jamaicans sound like and so if you say you are from Ghana and sound like a Jamaican then they can’t take you as a representation of Ghana.

“It disappoints me when at some point we branches off in regards to our identity. I started doing Fante rap a long time ago and most people were not into that much then. But when we started rapping in Twi then some of the youth like Lil Shaker and the rest started to rap in Pidgin. EL also started to rap in Pidgin and that’s how things started to pick up for him.

“And it’s the Pidgin that take us to all these foreign places we play our concert because the Pidgin sounds Ghanaian. But I believe may be some of the artists are passing through phases like we did and may be they will move on but the fear is that they will stay there far too long. M.anifest has also started using more local language and its working for him.”

Source: YFM

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Portia Arthur