?Presenting To You Aponkye And Osebo?

Showbiz artistes have interesting ways of shooting themselves to fame. They provoke each other with their lyrics, they pretend to be at loggerheads with each other and they will even fake their own deaths if that is what it will take to get noticed.

Perhaps the most prominent among their efforts to be noticed is the weird names they give themselves. On the world stage, one hears Snoop Doggy Dog, Notorious BIG, P. Diddy etc and right here in Ghana, there is an artiste called Aponkye (Goat), and another Osebo (Tiger). There are many others such as Okomfoo, Abomofoo, Osaman Kwaku, Obrafoo, and Mmoatia.

Interestingly some of these artistes have such beautiful names, yet they are ready to sacrifice them for the show business ones. Okomfoo Kwaadee is Jerry Anaba, Lord Kenya is Abraham Philip Akpor Kojo Kenya, Mzbel’s real name is Nana Ekua Amoah while Castro is Theopholus Tagoe.

Nathaniel Totimeh, for instance, is Kokovelli’s real name. But how many people know this? With the exception of his close relations and friends, it is probably only a handful of his fans who know about the other name. So why does Nat call himself Kokovelli?

He told Showbiz that the name was given to him by his friends when he was in school. “At that time, my favourite musician was Tupac Makavelli, a foreign artiste. When my friends noticed this, they decided to combine both names to create a nickname for me and they came up with Kokovelli”.

On other interesting and popular name is Batman. When? pronounced, the picture that is immediately created in one’s mind is the bigger version of the animal, bat. But Emmanuel Samini, Batman’s real name, said this name has got nothing at all to do with bats. “Batman simply means the ‘Best Of All Time’ and the Man at the end identifies me as the man that I am. That is all”. He said.

Then again, there is Abrewa Nana, Dorcas Opoku Darkwah. Why on earth would any young lady call herself grandmother or an old woman? But Dorcas explained that is no grandmother or old woman.

“I was named after my grandmother and back home, we all call our grandmother? ‘Abrewa’ and her grandchildren, ‘Nananom’”. So Abrewa Nana simply means grand grandma’s grandchild. Dorcas said she decided to use Abrewa Nana as her showbiz name because it is very Ghanaian and indigenous.

Tic Tac, the brand name of a mint flavoured sweet is what Nana Kwaku Otchere Duah has also chosen to be his showbiz name. I can bet my last coin on the fact that if there? should be any musical show in town and Tic Tac’s appearance on stage is announced by his real name, most of his audience will not have a clue as to who he is.

“I decided to use Tic Tac when I entered into show business because my real name is very long and difficult to pronounce frequently. But Tic Tac is easier to pronounce and can be mentioned over and over again without taking a breather. Try doing that with my real name and see”, he said with a laugh.

I have seen Slim Busterr on several occasions and at all those times, I have asked myself – “why does this man call himself ‘Slim’ when he appears to be so fleshy”?

Slim Busterr’s real name is Ebenezer Asare. In school, his best friend was also called Ebenezer and so to differentiate between the two of them, he was named ‘Slim’ by his friends because he was very slim then. “But when I entered into show business, I decided to change Boaster to Busterr, just as my fans wanted it to be”.

Then again there is Mad Fish who is so crazy about fishes. His real name is Raymond Frimpong? but calls himself Mad Fish because he loves to eat and watch fishes. “Nothing fascinates me more than watching a documentary on fishes in the big ocean. I love to watch them move from one place to the other, flapping their tails and fins in the process”.

He said that he included “Mad” to “Fish” because he acts so crazily on stage that sometimes people mistake him to be a mad person. “I decided to call myself Mad Fish because I perform like crazy on stage and I also love fishes”.