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FEATURE: Shut Up! Reggie Rockstone

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 Source: ASAMOAH-BAIDOO, ARNOLD

I was a die-hard fanatic of Reggie Rockstone and I fawned over him for the coinage of hiplfe and his lyrical prowess, but no more. He has become a talkative, a boken record fraught with banalities and has nothing good to offer.

That is why I treat his gallop from newspapers to websites to growl his balonies, with the utmost contempt. Infact,the headline " Why I snubbed Jay-Z" should have read " Why Jay-Z snubbed me," because that was the exact episode of what transpired. Jay-Z snubbed Reggie because he has never heard of anybody by that name and he has not heard of anything called hiplife. The name Reggie Rockstone does not even sound African.

I am utterly surprised that Reggie compared his achievements in hiphop to Jay-Z. What an unpardonable howler! How many albums have Reggie produced? How many of his songs have topped music charts? Has he got a record label to his name? Has he got a high-class recording studio?

12 years in the business and he has nothing to show for. He has achieved nothing, except gloat and waffle about the creation of the genre hiplife. How has he,as the creator or originator of hiplfe, promoted the art to the outside world? In the world of hiphop, nobody knows Reggie Rockstone, no wonder Jigga showed him the red flag.

What on earth was he thinking, that Jay-Z would want to collaborate with him on a track? In his wildest dreams. Jay-Z had an itinerary when he came to Ghana and that did not include Reggie. Jigga wasn't going to waste his precious time being on the same stage with Reggie, who would sing on irrelevant and screwy stuff.

What did he sing about when he had a huge platform to do a song with Beenie Man, all he could sing was 'Chuku Chaka Chuku chaka Popi Popi'. What the heck! Reggie Rockstone demurred to perform that night because, he knew he could not match the young guys, he couldn't move the crowd the way Batman, Wutah and Obrafour would. What song was he going to perform anyway,'sweetie seetie','mapouka', or 'elephant you elephant me'.

I cannot believe he tried to compare himself to hiphop icons like Snoop And Ludacris. How dare he?

If Rockstone thinks he is big,I'll take the opportunity to tell him that he is big only in Ghana.

Outside Ghana, he is imperceptible, in fact, he is nothing. He should concentrate on how to achieve something meaninful. Creating hiplife and making nuisance about it is not enough. But I do blame Charterhouse for all the cacophony. They gave the impression that Jay-Z wanted to do something with our hiplife guys, which was a blatant fib.The guys at Charterhouse even went ahead to say that Jay-Z requested for hiplife tunes for rendition. How ridiculous! Reggie must have been gullible to believe that Jay would do a hook with him. Maybe in the next life. The gross behaviour of Reggie and Charterhouse cannot be countenanced.