‘Rap Dacta’ Okyeame Kwame is alluding to the belief that change is the only constant in life. He has advised rappers to switch up their style of rap to attract more commercial success.
The revered rapper’s comments came while sharing his take on the most recent Billboard’s ‘greatest rappers of all time list. While others believe Drake did not deserve a spot on the list, Okyeame Kwame thinks otherwise, stressing that it is even more difficult to possess a melodic rap style.
“In rap music, what we sort of call melody is a cadence. The more melody you put in rap, the more difficult it is. Putting melody in rap means the rap music is going to sit with the chord, sit in time and be in key, so melodic rap is more difficult than regular [rhythmic] speeches”, he explained.
Eminem should have ranked higher than Jay-Z.
– @OkyeameKwame, Musician on Billboard's Top 10 Rappers of All Time on #ShowbizAtoZ with @SammyForson pic.twitter.com/NBybk6wKz1
— Joy 99.7 FM (@Joy997FM) February 14, 2023
Okyeame Kwame insinuates that Drake deserves a spot in the recently released greatest rappers of the all-time list due to his hard work. He thus cited melodic rap as an ingredient for commercial success, advising rappers to tap into it.
“Let me use a classic example like Sarkodie. When Sarkodie started rapping, we all enjoyed what he was doing, but it was when he started adding melodies to it, then it became a national success”, the ‘Rap Dacta’ opined.
According to him, it is not advisable to “water down melodic rap because that is the future of rap”.
Sarkodie became a commercial success when he added melody to his rap.
– @OkyeameKwame, Musician on Billboard's Top 10 Rappers of All Time on #ShowbizAtoZ with @SammyForson. pic.twitter.com/4Ns3EJDbE5
— Joy 99.7 FM (@Joy997FM) February 14, 2023
He further buttressed his point; “people screaming at us on records isn’t sexy anymore. People want to hear some melody so that even if they don’t understand what you’re saying, there’s a certain symbiotic connection between the artiste and the audience”.
Okyeame Kwame, himself, has been named in three-time Grammy Nominee Rocky Dawuni’s top 5 best rappers list. Rocky appeared on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z show, where he opined on a lot of industry-related issues, including advising rappers to take melodic rap a bit more seriously.
