Okyeame Kwame has reflected on a difficult stretch in his life, recalling how a celebrated career in Ghana once gave way to hardship in the United States, where he found himself walking through snow in sub-zero conditions just to get to work.
Speaking on Okay FM with Nana Romeo, the veteran rapper, often referred to as the rap doctor, said the turning point came after his third album underperformed and he began losing ground to rival act Lord Kenya, whose rising popularity reshaped the Ghanaian rap scene.
“I remember going for a show and I was next on the bill. I heard the MC asking who they wanted to listen to. The crowd shouted, ‘Lord Kenya.’
“That discouraged me. So when I got the opportunity to go to the US to work, I didn’t think twice,” he said.
That decision led him to the United States, where life looked very different from the stage success he had known in Ghana. He described working night shifts at a hospital while sharing a basement space with his bandmate, Okyeame Quophi.
“I used to live with my brother Okyeame Kofi at his sister’s place. So when she closes from work in the day, she would pick me and take me to work.
“One day, she was tired after her shift, then I overheard her husband talking to her, saying, ‘Won’t that boy take the bus? Everyday he wants a lift.’
When I overheard them, I emerged and decided to take the bus.
What followed, he said, was a moment that has stayed with him ever since. After waiting outside in freezing weather for more than 20 minutes without seeing a bus, he chose to walk instead.
“I was so distraught until I realised my face was frozen. I asked myself what made my face frozen? Then I noticed that I had been crying and my tears had frozen to my face,” he recalled, visibly emotional.
In that state of despair, he said he turned inward and had what he described as a conversation with God.
“I asked God, ‘Why are you allowing me to suffer this way?
“I heard God’s voice in my head saying, ‘You are foolish, you have a gift of music, you even have an award. Instead of you using that gift, you are in another man’s land and suffering,” he said.
He added that the experience became a reset moment that pushed him to return home and rebuild his music career, which later became one of the most respected in Ghana’s entertainment history.
“Everybody has a gift. It could be speaking, singing, acting, writing. Do not play with your gift,” Okyeame Kwame advised.
Watch what he said below.
