2022 3Music Awards: the iconic picture of Black Sherif performing 'Kwaku the Traveller'
Ghanaian singer-songwriter Mohammed Ismail Sharrif, alias Black Sherif, has revealed how the widely acclaimed 2022 3Music Awards performance of his ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ song was planned. About seven months after the event, he has shared the details for the very first time with media personality Ebenezer Donkoh, alias NYDJ. During the awards night in March, while the rapper and singer performed the unknown song live on stage for the very first time, what appeared to be rain or a waterfall started to pour on him alone in the Grand Arena of the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC). “I had the song already and Mr Sadiq [then-3Music Network CEO) reached out that, ‘Yo! I have this idea for a performance’. He visualised it to me [and said] ‘This is how I want it to go’, and I told him I have the perfect song for this,” he disclosed. Sadiq did not know the song prior, “No, he just shared the idea with me,” the Ghanaian rapper explained. He said he told Sadiq “I have this song I’m dropping sometime next two or three weeks so I think it will be better for [this performance],” and when he eventually played the song for the media executive, “He was like, ‘Yo! This is it! A hundred per cent.” According to Sherif, he sent the song to Sadiq whose team then started work on a live rendition. While all this happened, Kwaku Killa, as is his nickname, was in Lagos, Nigeria. He said, when he arrived in Ghana he started doing his rehearsals. Recalling the actual performance, the Konongo native assessed it thus: “That performance went nuts, bro. Crazy!” He stated he anticipated the effect the performance had on the song’s success also. “I won’t lie. I did,” he said noting it far exceeded his expectations, however, and “that’s why I don’t like to set limits or expectations for myself because I don’t want my mind to be blown too much.” “I knew if this water falls on stage, if I perform this [song] live, while nobody’s heard it before, with the kick [and live instrumentation], it would be spectacular. I just knew it,” Black Sherif commented on the aesthetics of the historical moment. “The only thing was, it actually went beyond spectacular. People loved it,” he excitedly added. waku Killa also spoke on the writing process for ‘Kwaku the Traveller’. “I love to write from a raw place, real place to make the song mean something to me so that when it goes out, everyone that listens to it, it means something to them. That’s what I do every time,” he said. On promoting the megahit, he commented: “It’s God and schemes.” “It’s scheme at the backend and God that led to its success. It’s like the time was just right when everything came together,” he added. The thirteenth song on his 14-track debut album called ‘The Villain I Never Was’, ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ prompted frenzied social media challenges including people performing it under pouring water and repeating a line in the song that evokes the famed Biblical text: “Let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone.”
Ghanaian singer-songwriter Mohammed Ismail Sharrif, alias Black Sherif, has revealed how the widely acclaimed 2022 3Music Awards performance of his ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ song was planned. About seven months after the event, he has shared the details for the very first time with media personality Ebenezer Donkoh, alias NYDJ. During the awards night in March, while the rapper and singer performed the unknown song live on stage for the very first time, what appeared to be rain or a waterfall started to pour on him alone in the Grand Arena of the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC). “I had the song already and Mr Sadiq [then-3Music Network CEO) reached out that, ‘Yo! I have this idea for a performance’. He visualised it to me [and said] ‘This is how I want it to go’, and I told him I have the perfect song for this,” he disclosed. Sadiq did not know the song prior, “No, he just shared the idea with me,” the Ghanaian rapper explained. He said he told Sadiq “I have this song I’m dropping sometime next two or three weeks so I think it will be better for [this performance],” and when he eventually played the song for the media executive, “He was like, ‘Yo! This is it! A hundred per cent.” According to Sherif, he sent the song to Sadiq whose team then started work on a live rendition. While all this happened, Kwaku Killa, as is his nickname, was in Lagos, Nigeria. He said, when he arrived in Ghana he started doing his rehearsals. Recalling the actual performance, the Konongo native assessed it thus: “That performance went nuts, bro. Crazy!” He stated he anticipated the effect the performance had on the song’s success also. “I won’t lie. I did,” he said noting it far exceeded his expectations, however, and “that’s why I don’t like to set limits or expectations for myself because I don’t want my mind to be blown too much.” “I knew if this water falls on stage, if I perform this [song] live, while nobody’s heard it before, with the kick [and live instrumentation], it would be spectacular. I just knew it,” Black Sherif commented on the aesthetics of the historical moment. “The only thing was, it actually went beyond spectacular. People loved it,” he excitedly added. waku Killa also spoke on the writing process for ‘Kwaku the Traveller’. “I love to write from a raw place, real place to make the song mean something to me so that when it goes out, everyone that listens to it, it means something to them. That’s what I do every time,” he said. On promoting the megahit, he commented: “It’s God and schemes.” “It’s scheme at the backend and God that led to its success. It’s like the time was just right when everything came together,” he added. The thirteenth song on his 14-track debut album called ‘The Villain I Never Was’, ‘Kwaku the Traveller’ prompted frenzied social media challenges including people performing it under pouring water and repeating a line in the song that evokes the famed Biblical text: “Let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone.”
