ASEM - NO MORE KPAYOR

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• published: 09 Nov 2011
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From sheer blissful ignorance, innocence and uncertainty springs up a full-fledged Ghanaian rapper/songwriter with a top of the range lyrical acumen set to blow the minds of music lovers and bound to raise the hurdle for the african rap/music industry. Born Nana Wiafe Asante-Mensah in Cape Coast, the colonial capital of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, on 3rd July 1987 .Nana's parents: joseph and mary due to the nature of their jobs as itinerant merchant and public health nurse respectively, meant a periodic movement from one posting to the other. These movements brought then in Asem's growing days, several seeming setbacks ranging from restarting and adapting to a new school, building unsteady social relationships to his inability to adjust to a definite cultural setting. Asem was greatly influenced from childhood at around age nine by African highlife greats such as osibisa, fela kuti, yvonne chakaka and salif keita on the African front, biggie smalls, naughty by nature and lionel richie from the Americas. These influences were by extension brought on by his older brothers who went the extra mile to help him secure sessions in makeshift studios. In his junior high school, he gave his mere interest and hobby a little more thought and went on boldly to concrete this remote interest into a commercial venture in his sophomore years at senior high school. After senior high school, he came to the crossroads in journalism school when he had to choose his career path as a journalist or take music commercially and as a career. Now however, these seeming setbacks have come in handy, rendering a huge repertoire of jargons and slangs which today serve as reference points for his choruses which are deftly fused into his blinding hooks and sublime punch lines. Having swept the enviable world bank sponsored music for development award in 2010 Ghana music awards with his" school dey be" track (which was inspired by an educational project he embarked on) and winning the discovery of the year award in 2009 and nominations for Songwriter of the Year, Asem is set to take his aspirations to even greater heights.