Crunk music has always been here - Okyeame Kwame

Rapper, Kwame whose latest crunk song “Woso” is enjoying tremendous airplay as well as steadily climbing up the various music charts in the country has said that crunk music was in Ghana even before American star Lil Jon pioneered the genre. Watch Video: Woso (Remix) by Okyeame Kwame feat. Richie

His comments, however, debunk claims by some local musicians that they brought crunk music to Ghana. Speaking in an interview with Beatwaves, the sleek singer said, “I will not say I brought crunk music to Ghana. Crunk has always been part of world music and it has also always been here in Ghana too.

On our Akyeame first album we have a song titled ‘Fever of the flavour’ and it was a crunk song. Daddy Lumba’s ‘How do you like my dance’ as well as another song from Kojo Antwi were all crunk music. It is just that crunk became popular in the States when Lil Jon called it crunk.”

The focus of crunk, according to him, was often based on beats other than lyrics. While other forms of music address socio-political or personal concerns, crunk is almost exclusively party music.

Okyeame Kwame’s latest hit album is thus a fusion of crunk and highlife tunes. He told Beatwaves that within three and half months of the album’s release, more than five thousand copies of the CDs besides the DVDs had been sold out. “The album is on every chart in the country. It is number five (5) on the Joy FM chart show,” he indicated, adding it is leading the charts in Kumasi and Takoradi.

Okyeame Kwame believes there is much awaiting his album. According to him, every product goes through various stages before it reaches maturity. Thus whatever is happening now is just the introductory stage of the album. Okyeame Kwame last week returned from Nigeria where he collaborated with Olu Maintain for the remix version of the “Yahooze” track, courtesy MTV Base.