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Around the world · Ghana · since 1994

1994
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Accra

Ghana
Hiplife · Twi flows · highlife rhythms
Ride the roster1:40
Story, bloodline and 5 names

Reggie Rockstone came home from London and started rapping in Twi over highlife — the birth of hiplife, and one of the first scenes anywhere to treat an African language as the default on a rap record rather than the exception.

Bloodline · 1 stop from The Bronx
  1. 1973The Bronx
  2. 1994Accra

TransferLondon

Reggie Rockstone lived in London and New York, absorbed both, then came home and did the one thing neither could: rapped in Twi over highlife.

HiplifeSarkCessLynx
Roster
1994
Reggie Rockstone

The godfather of hiplife; made Twi rap normal.

YTW
1999
Obrafourdeep cut

Pae Mu Ka — the lyricist's record, still the local benchmark.

YTW
2009
Sarkodie

The most decorated rapper on the continent; frighteningly fast in Twi.

YTW
2013
M.anifestdeep cut

Grandson of a Ghanaian ethnomusicologist; the writer's writer.

YTW
2021
Black Sherif

Drill-inflected, sung in Twi and English, straight to number one.

YTW

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