Audio: Y33gye By Yaw Tog

Yaw Tog’s currently balancing fame with full-time education. When we speak on the phone he’s just finished class. “It’s kind of stressful but it needs to be done. I study geography, government, accounting and economics. I’ll be completing in September and then I’m done with it! I can focus on music, 100%.”

He first picked up the mic in 2018, still in his early teens, and full of the audacious self-belief that comes with youth. “I was still in junior-high school. I was going here, there, begging people for help. I’ve not relaxed since I started music. I’d go to school and I wouldn’t learn anything, my mind was just music, music, music! All that hard work paid off, tings started booming.”

There’s an easy fluidity to his delivery, which fuses English with Twi and Pidgin. His effortless glide over productions is the result of his process in the booth, which couples structured written verses with off-the-cuff, free flowing expressions. “I write things down in English first, and then when I’m in the studio the Twi comes out naturally. I don’t have to think about it too much.”