Ghanaian rap star M.anifest has lauded the grandpapa of Hiplife Reggie Rockstone and Obrafuor in an interview with BBC’s DJ Edu terming them as music greats who helped him to strike the balance between the Highlife and Hip Hop he had deep love for as a young talented guy.

“I grew up to Highlife music [which cannot go without mentioning or] talking about Ebo Taylor, C.K. man, K.K. Kabobo, and all those Highlife greats who are still around like Amakye Dede and Charles Kwadwo Fosu aka Daddy Lumba”.

He revealed that as a young aspiring musician “I used to listen to the L.L. Cool J, Naughty by Nature, Kris Kross and the Jay Z’s, but it all was not so real to us until Hiplife was formed.”

He indicated that Hiplife is “Hip Hop finding its way to fuse with Highlife music from where we are from.”

He paused briefly to praise Hip Life greats Reggie Rockstone and Obrafuor for igniting his passion to evolve to the next level in the genre of music he currently does.

“Big ups to Reggie Rockstone pioneer and Big Ups to Obrafuor… Those days were the days when I really had the identification to Hip Hop that was closer to the kind of music that is closer to [my] culture”.

He added that though there are some challenges with creating music in Ghana, he was impressed with the new twist and energy emerging young talents bring to the showbiz industry.