another rap artist called freddie funkstone. i thought i was listening to rappers from brooklyn. so, immediately, igot up out of the table. i said, look, i don t have any discs, but i can make beats . we left the club, like, 4:00 in the morning, we got to the recording studio at like 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. then, like, a few hours later, everything started clicking. rab was very much like reggie as well two peas in a pod. i unfortunately, he passed away. but yeah, rab was reggie s partner in music for- a long time. the two ghanaians, raised in the west, mixed hip hop with highlife, and hiplife was born. i looked like the folks that they had seen on mtv. i had the short dreads, the wife beater, the tims, the camouflage. but then, when i rapped, it was in twi. and that, thatjust blew everybody s mind. raps in twi.
and that s what birthed hiplife. # girl, your love is spiritual. # oh, my god, oh. # girl, your love dey be. # i want to shower you kisses. # to live all over you. # when you give me chance. and we had now hiplife and we got highlife, we had two things now. now, the question is where do we go from here? # some honey. # buy some prada, gucci louis v, giorgio armani. # my momma needs a house. # my brother needs some shoes. # i had to get the family right before i lost my granny. # i m from the ghettos of ashaiman. in a male dominated industry, rapper eno barony is changing the face of hiplife. i think the existence of people like eno barony is the breaking of the glass ceiling moment. she raps. i remember the first time i was on the radio station with her, she out rapped me. i was like, my goodness
afrobeats out of nigeria a hybrid of highlife and global beats had knocked hiplife off its pedestal. afrobeats became the catch all for west african pop. # you want a mr right, i m mr right now. hiplife is dead because the driving force of the music is the younger people, and the younger people do not identify with hiplife. i d be a fool to sit on bbc and say hiplife is dead. . no, hiplife is not dead. ghana and nigeria sibling rivals on everything from jollof rice to football dispute whether afrobeats was born out of hiplife. i get embarrassed when i see these unnecessary ghanaian resentment towards nigerians cos of their success. it s not a good look. # i don t deserve all your awesome. # but truthfully, truthfully. we benefit from nigerian success, as nigerians do benefit from ghanaian success. # simple abc for your delight. # mmm, sake off.
we left the club, like, 4:00 in the morning, we got to the recording studio at like 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. then, like, a few hours later, everything started clicking. rab was very much like reggie as well two peas in a pod. i unfortunately, he passed away. but yeah, rab was reggie s partner in music for a long time. the two ghanaians, raised in the west, mixed hip hop with highlife, and hiplife was born. i looked like the folks that they had seen on mtv. i had the short dreads, the wife beater, the tims, the camouflage. but then, when i rapped, it was in twi. and that thatjust blew everybody s mind. raps in twi. twi being one of the biggest local languages, it was unique in a sense that nobody had attempted to put rap together in that context before.
influence of african music, you have to understand the story of hiplife. keep your eyes on the road by reggie rockstone plays. when i did what i did, i tagged it. so, when a dude put a piece of meat between two bread and he called it a burger, he named it. and that s what i did. i named it hiplife . hiplife music is a conversation between ghana s past. shordy by praye plays. akasieni by lord kenya plays. ..and its present. bunker by kidi plays. mind your business by eno baroni plays. this is the story of a music genre that birthed a global movement. but before hiplife, there was highlife. highlife music plays.