He was among the pioneers of Ghanaian Ga hiplife who rappers made it on the charts with his debut album, Chaka Chaka in the year 1997. Kaseem Babe is his showbiz name but known in real life as Kaseem Issaka, born on April 25th, 1977, and a Muslim.

He is a product of St. John's Secondary School at Achimota in Accra and was among the 1998 alumnae. He has three albums to his credit in the Ghanaian music market. In 2002, he released his second album entitled 'Akrowa' and followed this by his third album in 2005 with the title (Inyaanyo), literary meaning 'my friend', which he described as unsuccessful among the three albums.

The hiplife artiste declared that he is working on his 4th album which would contain 10 tracks with 5 tracks reloaded from the third album, which couldn't hit the waves due to poor management.

In a private discussion with the Weekly Fylla in Accra, Kaseem Babe disclosed that in view of the fact that most Ghanaian Disk Jockeys relent to help promote local sounds on the market, even when paid the illegal payola and also the frequent resignation of some producers from the scene, due to inability with MUSIGA to help address issues confronting musicians in Ghana, he has adopted a new form of promoting his music in the country.

In describing his recovered strategy, he mentioned that he would use the live band when hosting shows, to make his performance more quality and expensive. Kaseem Babe said; 'it is unprofessional for musicians both local and foreign to mime over their songs for fans to pay and watch them whiles they already have same on the copies acquired from the market. Kaseem declared that he is co-operating with hotels and other rest places to host live band shows for his fans and said he believed he could make the hitz without the help of any DJ.

He further mentioned that even royalties entitled to recognized musicians in Ghana are not sufficient as he emphasized on 600,000 given every month. He is nicknamed "Ga-mantle," by his fans and that he declared was won for being a Ga rap beginner which he cherishes most.

His first album was under Gab- Star Records, the second was under Stick - Entertainment and he says that the third album, as well as the fourth, would be under Kaseem - Records. He finally revealed his intended breakthrough after the release of his fourth album to enable him further his education at NAFTI, to offer a course in film and TV Editing.

www.ghanaweb.com