Nana Ampadu released the world’s first rap song.

Veteran Ghanaian highlife musician Nana Kwame Ampadu says he intends to contest records in the Guinness World Records that ‘Rapper’s Delight’ released in 1979 by Sugarhill Gang is the world’s first rap song.

According to him, his 1967 hit song titled ‘Ebi Te Yie’ should rather be acknowledged at the world’s first rap song.

Nana Ampadu won’t be the first Ghanaian to embark on this path. Veteran musician Gyedu Blay Ambolley has also publicly declared that Guinness World Records’ records need to be changed.

Ambolley said he invented rap and even went ahead to release the first rap album ‘Simigua’ in 1973. Six years before ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was released.

Nana Kwame Ampadu, speaking in an interview with Myjoyonline.com after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 VGMA Industry Awards Monday, said ‘Ebi Te Yie’ is the first rap song in the world.

“I started the rap. That was in 1967. I don’t know if somebody has started before 67 then that person can come out [with evidence] but I did only one track. The song is titled ‘Ebi Te Yie’ it was 45 LP front and back and the front was the rap,” the veteran revealed.

He said the reason why it has not been documented globally is because he did not know who had to send the information of the song to the Guinness World Records.

“At that time even there was no recording studios here and who to push it around but if they can go into the records, they can find out that it was recorded on Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC) label in 1967,” Nana Ampadu stressed.

On Ambolley’s allegations that he rather started rap, Nana Ampadu responded that, “my rap was in ’67, I don’t know when Ambolley started. If it’s [in the 70s then] somebody has started only that I didn’t hammer on it. I just did it once.”

He revealed that he released his second rap song ‘Kukurukuru’ in 1990. “Now that communication has been very easy,” Nana Ampadu said he is going to take steps to get the error in the Guinness World Records corrected.

He added that he will soon make the original song available to some radio stations to play to prove that it is rap.

Source: Myjoyonline.com