Michael Elliot Kwabena Okyere Darko popularly known as Obrafour, says he is the executioner who came to bring sanity into rap music in Ghana.
Speaking on Asaase FM Tuesday (28 December), the “Ghana rap sofo” said, “When the propounders of Hiplife brought Hiplife and the revolution caught up, our elderly thought it was an empty noise so it needed somebody in the calibre of the executioner to bring some sanity so I chose the name. – we know the work of the abrafour [ executioners] at the palace; they administer justice aside that they are the sole protectors of the throne so it needed somebody like myself”
The “pae mu ka” hitmaker said he did not set up to have a beef with those already in the industry but sometimes “you have to drill holes into the works of others and then streamline them.”
He said the intention was not to attack any artiste but to get the elderly in society to accept the rap music adding “any new thing is difficult for people to grab so it needed somebody to come in like that and make it a bit easier with the kind of adages and so on…”
The rap executioner said the Hiplife music genre is never a copy of the American rap music, “I don’t know the mindset of the propounders of Hiplife as at the time. But then for me, I thought they knew that Hiplife originated from here [Ghana] because I will take you back to the settings at the palace; when the chief speaks, we have the linguist who makes it a little easier for the people to understand.
“And look at the way the linguist goes about making the chief’s statement audible…it was pure poetry and that was what our brothers from the diaspora remembered. This rap thing is actually from Ghana.”
