Shatta Wale is one of the greatest artistes now - Wanlov

Wanlov ahead of EL’s BAR Concert was in our studios to promote the event with his group mate Mensa.

The FOKN Bois member on YFM host Trigmatic, mentioned Shatta Wale as one of the greatest artists now.

“There isn’t really an industry. I feel we keep losing when it comes to our identity. When I started rapping I was emulating Snoop, Busta Rhymes,Talib Kweli, Mos Def and others; later on, I started emulation Sizzla and some others. Then at a point, after looking at people like Jay Z, Beenie Man, I realized these people were representing the places they came from and so I did Konkonsa which represented how people talked over here in Ghana.

“For me there are some artistes that are very good, Shatta Wale is one of the greatest artistes we have down here; when I hear him rapping on Dancehall Commando in Ga and Pidgin, he is very excellent. I know a guy in Abeka Lapaz called Bullet, and he is a wicked Twi and Pidgin rapper but as soon as Shatta Wale came out, he also started doing Dancehall music in the Jamaican Patois. And I can’t work with Bullet on that level because if you go outside Ghana, people know how Jamaicans sound like and so if you say you are from Ghana and sound like a Jamaican then they can’t take you as a representation of Ghana.

“It disappoints me when at some point we branch off in regards to our identity. I started doing Fante rap a long time ago and most people were not into that much then. But when we started rapping in Twi then some of the youth like Lil Shaker and the rest started to rap in Pidgin. EL also started to rap in Pidgin and that’s how things started to pick up for him.

“And it’s the Pidgin that take us to all these foreign places we play our concert because the Pidgin sounds Ghanaian. But I believe maybe some of the artistes are passing through phases like we did and maybe they will move on but the fear is that they will stay there far too long. M.anifest has also started using more local language and its working for him.”