Sarkodie influenced my rap career - Laycon of BBNaija

Laycon, the winner of Big Brother Naija Season 5, stated that Ghanaian Hip Hop artist Sarkodie greatly inspired his music career.

In an interview with Giovani Caleb on Showbiz 360, he said he got exposed to Ghanaian music via a TV show in Nigeria called “Music Africa”. Where he discovered artists like VIP, Tinny, and others during his secondary school days.

When he got to the university, Sarkodie came on the music scene with his finesse and rap style. According to Laycon, he fell in love musically with his style as a tongue-twisting rapper. He started learning his lyrics and spitting them to his friends and peers even though he had no clue what the lines meant.

The “Verified” hitmaker intimated that he mastered the “Highest” rapper’s music so much that his friends would ask him to explain the lyrics to them. And that was the only reason that made him stop memorizing Sarkodie’s rhymes.

“There was this TV show called Music Africa when I was in secondary school. I would always watch people like VIP, Tinny on TV. So I have always listened to Ghanaian music. Then Sarkodie came as a rapper, and I’m like yeah. But then I didn’t understand what he was saying,” he reminisced.

Laycon went on to say about Sark’s music. He said, “the thing with him was, I could understand the techniques, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. For a literature student like me, I listen to what he says, the syllabic rhythm he’s using here, and the rhyme scheme he uses here. But I do not understand what he’s saying”.

He confessed that it was Sark’s freestyle on Kanye West’s “All Of The Lights” instrumental on Tim Westwood that blew his mind. Lyrically, that he chose that instrumental for his mixtape called “Conspiracy” in 2013.

The “Fierce” rapper said he would rate Sarkodie on top of his list of best rappers.

“I would rate him as one of the people who have influenced my rap game. He definitely did in those days his Rap Attack with Vector, and this was when I was in the university, by the way. I absorbed his music, and now I’m listening to the likes of Kwesi Arthur, the likes of Joey B, the likes of Yaw Tog, so listen to Ghanaian music”.

Showbiz 360 airs every Friday at 8:30 pm with the chucklesome Giovani Caleb.