Sarkodie – Africa’s Fastest Lyricist and Award winning Rapper

Born in the 1980s, Michael Kwesi Owusu Addo AKA Sarkodie AKA Obidi Pon Bidi is a Ghanaian recording artist, rapper, brand ambassador and a BET Awards Best International Act winner for 2012.

Sarkodie, the fourth of five children, was raised in the Harbour City known as Tema, Ghana by his mother, Emma Maame Aggrey. He allegedly entered the ‘raphood’ at the fledgling age of 4, and continued as an ‘underground rapper’ where he contested, and won innumerable rap competitions; establishing himself as a rap artiste to be reckoned with on the local landscape.

The graduate of Graphic Designing from IPMC rose to prominence in 2008 after turning down a job offer from an advertising company to completely focus on making music. Sarkodie was featured on Ewe rapper Edem’s 2008 album, Volta Regime, and having proven himself yet again, he went on to work on his debut album “MaKye” with producers including JaySo and Kill Beats which was released in 2009. The first single “Baby” featuring Mugees of the duo group R2Bees was a major sensation and propelled Sarkodie into the limelight in the music industry; nationally and internationally. Sarkodie who raps mostly in Twi, his native language bagged several awards and nominations including five major awards at the 2010 Ghana Music Awards for the debut album ‘MaKye’ including the Artiste of the Year, Discovery of the Year, HipHop/Hiplife Artiste of the Year, Best Rapper of the Year, Album of the Year and Best Collaboration of the Year. He was also part of the historic Ghana cypher that appeared on the international airing of the 2010 BET Hip‐Hop Awards.

His second album ‘Rapperholic’ which was released in 2012 was no less cyclonic as it swooped twelve nominations in the 2012 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards and then went on to bag three awards: Artist of the Year (for the second time), Most Popular Song of the Year for his hit song “You Go Kill Me” and the Best Rapper of the Year for the second time as well.

Asides from his wave-making BET awards win in 2012, Sarkodie also clinched the award for ‘African Artist of the Year’ at the Hip Hop World Awards [Headies] 2012 and a National Youth Achievement Award for ‘Achievement in Music’ in the same year.

Sarkodie who has performed with notable international acts including Chipmunk, T‐Pain, Trey Songz, D-banj,and Mavado has been signed by Akon on to the Konvict Africa label.

With the release of his 2013 album T.M.G, the award-winning rapper wants to add some entrepreneurial pursuits to his very impressive resume. Plans to launch his clothing line named ‘Sark Collections’ are reportedly in full gear, and a brand of bottled water named ‘Holic H2O’ is included in the mix.

From a modest ‘underground’ rapper to international stardom; the man who prides himself as being the fastest rapper there is has journeyed quite a distance.