Agegon to Parliament

Kwame Obeng, also known as A-plus, is a 30 year old musician with a daughter of the age of one-and-a-half, but still single. This week, he sat down in a relaxed mood with The Saturday Statesman to talk about how his career got started.

Kwame had his second cycle education at Swedru secondary technical, where he went on stage during entertainment to rap, at a point in time he realise he could do music professionally in 1998, in 1999 he started writing his song and demo; between ‘99 and 2000 he did his first demo with Slim Buster. “It was very good” Kwame says.

As a growing kid he wanted to do everything and the parent were supportive of their young prodigy. Kwame says he isn’t motivated by “trophies and charts” because at the end of the day he believes that the same people who prepare the awards are the same people who receive them but in any case he is among one of the few artist who have had there music played on GTV, Peace FM and Adom FM news and one of the few who had been interviewed on BBC.

The young Kwame Obeng the second child in a family of six loved day dreaming. But even his wildest childhood fantasies couldn”t prepare the talented artiste for his early success.

Having three albums to his credit which are freedom of speech 1 and 2 and Agegon, these album have dominated airwaves for years, but Kwame says when he sees people dancing to his music he feels very angry because is like he haven’t ‘achieved his target’ ‘I want to use my music to educate the public not to be danced to it’ he stresses. I will love to also do collaboration with Obrafour or Kwaadei because I see them doing good music that matters.

‘A letter to Parliament’ the new album which has about ten tracks including ‘Mirror, Mirror’, ‘Bad man’, ‘Paddies’ and a couple of them has being launched. ‘A letter to Parliament’ is a song I wrote after Ghana@50, when the government decided to use our money to celebrate our birth day and brought us back to darkness.

He also says the song takes some Ghanaians to task for their attitudes. ‘A letter to Parliament’ is also to appreciate people like Nana Akufo Addo and John Mahamah for what they are doing for the country he says. But not everyone appreciate A-plus’ political slant. ‘Anonymous calls have being coming in to threaten me to take me to court and or saying ‘if you want your life then redraw’.

But Kwame remains resolute. ‘I am still not shaken because I believe we are all at fault’ he says. ‘I don’t belong to the music industry because with me there is not any industry but like the Black Stars did in Germany 2006 cup, I will be also raising the flag high because my next album will be about Africa, there will be a presentation to the AU or the UN Secretary General’.

Although the responses are good he said, till he reaches his set goal he will not be swollen headed as despite his youth, he knows the industry can quickly turn on it stars. ‘Those who smile with you are the same who will back bite you if are not there’