Hiplife trio 4X4, made up of Captain Planet (Sylvanus Dodji Jeoffrey), Abortion (Raphael Edem Avornyo) and Fresh Prince (Prince Tamakloe) have openly called 31-year-old, Richard Cobbina, (also known as Shaka Zulu) who featured in the music video of their hit song “Fresh One” an armed robber, even though the court has not proven him as such.
A member of the group made this pronouncement last Friday, September 10, 2010 at Nima, during an all-stars jam dubbed “Sallahfest” in front of the Nima footbridge at the lorry station, as part of the Idl Fitr celebration for Moslems.
When it was 4X4’s turn to entertain their Moslem fans after several performances from other artistes, they came on stage with their new hit single “Miss Doctor” from the ‘Appietus Compilation’ and totally took control of the crowd. Before their second song on stage, Abortion (a member of the group) said:
“Ok now we are going to perform the armed robber’s song. DJ please drop the armed robber’s song for the people (referring to their popular song “Fresh One”). Some artistes present and a section of the crowd looked surprised and wondered why he decided to tag their song as an armed robber’s song.
Prior to Abortion’s remark, Shaka Zulu who is currently in the grips of the Police was arrested by the Accra Regional Police Command over an armed robbery operation which took place over a year ago. According to reports, Shaka Zulu and four others were said to have armed themselves with guns and stormed Lashibi, near Tema, for a robbery operation, during which they attacked a businessman and took from him an amount of GH20,000 plus four laptop computers. Shaka Zulu is presently in police custody awaiting trial, and according to laws of the land he cannot be referred to as an armed robber until he is proven guilty.
Interestingly, the group 4X4 issued a statement to disassociate themselves from Shaka Zulu who kept a strange beard and hairstyle just to fit into a role in 4X4’s music video. According to their statement they disassociated themselves from the alleged armed robber because a section of the public carried the story as though he is a member of the 4X4 rap trio.
Mr. Duke Banson CEO of Paradise Entertainment and manager of the group, told ghanacelebrities.com that 4X4 has nothing to do with what happened before they came into contact with Shaka Zulu, and his subsequent appearance in the ‘Fresh One’ music video. Furthermore, Telecommunication Company Milicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo who also featured Shaka Zulu in one of their Television ads, have pulled off the ad from all TV stations, after his arrest.
The “Sallafest” was hosted by resident hip life group ‘VIP’ in collaboration with Happy FM. Artistes namely: Tinny, Asem, Bandana, X-Doe, OJ Blaq, Richie, 2Tuff and a host of others.
4X4 is a rap group mentored by hiplife duo Buk Bak (Bright and Ronney); they released their first album ‘Siklitele’ in 2003, followed by a second album ‘Contestant Number 1’ in 2007. 4X4 who were initially, a duo brought Fresh Prince (Prince Tamakloe) on board, to feature on their 2007 hit ‘HotGirls.com’ and later joined the group permanently to make it three.
Watch "Fresh One" Video Below:
