Yaw Sarpong, One of the pioneers of Ghanaian gospel music
Sensational Gospel musician, Yaw Sarpong has revealed they (Yaw Sarpong and The Asomafo) had their first gospel hit song after ten (10) years of perseverance.
He said after carefully examining the type of music highlife greats Nana Ampadu, Yaa Mois, Kiki Onyinah, Smart Nkansah and Agyaku compose, he decided to be more creative in his gospel music approach by featuring a lady as a lead singer to support him.
“I saw that Gospel music then was declining, so I decided to feature a lady to support me as a lead singer so we sing together. It wasn’t easy from 1981 to 1990 when we recorded five albums because all the songs were never successful but after ten years in 1991 we had our first hit album,” Yaw Sarpong said on FootPrint TV.
The song ‘Biribiara Nye Den Mma No’ according to the veteran gospel artist was a song to renew once faith in God from challenges individuals go through.
Commenting on his forty (40) years success chalked in composing indigenous gospel music, Yaw Sarpong recounted his experience after a visit to Ankaful Prisons in 2015 with regards to their health, food and organising gospel events to encourage them in the situation they find themselves, his management communicated with Ghana Prisons Service to begin a six year project to build music centres and provide them with drugs.
“I saw the need to also donate to hospitals because of my experience when I was hospitalised so together with my management we donated GHc 20,000 to the Korle Teaching Hospital,” Yaw Sarpong added.
Yaw Sarpong described his unbroken sales record for Despite Music as one of his best moment being proud of doing gospel.
“My ‘Hossana’ album was ranked the highest music sales with over 4oo,000 copies sold followed by Lumba’s ‘Aben Wo Ha’, Kojo Antwi’s song and Nana Acheampong,” Yaw Sarpong said on FootPrint. According to him, he has never regretted doing gospel music though he didn’t reap from most of the songs he released with the exception of ‘Yen kakyere Agya se’.
“I didn’t get money from most of the songs I released but with ‘Yen kakyere agya se’, I had money from it because I bought an instrument and two or three cars for my ministry,” he added. Yaw Sarpong who started music from Methodist church singing band before he was recognised by music legend MacAbraham has started touring churches to share his experience through music to celebrate his forty years music journey.
He is currently working on his 26th album.
Watch Yaw Sarpong and The Asomafo – Remix of ‘Oko Yi’ ft. Allstars
