Tulenkey mounts defence for controversial lyrics allegedly insinuating ‘rape, violence, pedophilia’

Rapper Tulenkey has mounted a defence for lyrics he used in his new song Kom and his cover of Sarkodie’s Confam.

In the Confam homemade freestyle cover, the rapper, reclining in a sofa, briefly told a story of a male figure who paid for food and transportation for a girl who came to visit him. Though he had hoped for sex, the girl adamantly refused. In Nigerian Pidgin English, the rapper bemoaned the painful fruitlessness of the male figure’s actions, and painting a picture of desperation, uttered the words: “What you’re doing may lead to me raping you.”

Appearing on CTV’s Time with the Stars, August 8, 2023, Tulenkey, born Chief Osei Bonsu, said: “I think when people heard that verse, they overreacted.”

“Hiphop is an art [form] and a way of life,” he said, insinuating it was only a guileless story he was telling.

“I didn’t say [in the rap] that I was going to rape her,” he claimed.

“It was sarcasm – and I explained it to him,” he explained, bemoaning also: “But you know people overreact and that’s why it’s so.”

Tulenkey was reacting to rapper Wanlov denouncing his rap verse on Sarkodie’s Confam beat, which according to the latter, seemed to encourage rape when coercion and entrapment by financial favours fail.

According to Tulenkey, “Sarkodie says worse – I won’t say it’s bad but it’s all sarcasm.”

He insisted it is malicious criticism being thrown his way “because they want to make me look bad”.

At host Larry Bozzlz’s invitation, the Child Abuse hitmaker categorically declared: “I don’t endorse rape or anything of that sort.”

Rather, he added, he spreads “positivity and love”.

Tulenkey confirmed also that his new hit Kom was sonically inspired by the works of legendary music producer Da Hammer.

Here, Bozzlz sort clarification for two touchy bits concerning Kom: a lyric about the rapper being undeterred in his pursuit of “a girl even if she’s in diapers,” and a pump action gun used in a video for the song.

Tulenkey answered by first stating “in high school,” it was usual when “you like a girl and another guy likes the [same] girl, they’d intentionally badmouth the girl so you stay away from the girl – they call it break”.

With that, he explained that he was only expressing his determination to pursue any girl he desires even if “she is this or she’s that – even if she wears diapers, she’s the only one I want, you get it? Even if the girl is alanta (knock knees), she is the one I want – I think Sarkodie has even said something like that [in a song] before”.

“I didn’t say I like her even if she were a child,” the Dansoman-based rap star noted, stressing: “So, it’s a misinterpretation.”

Bozzlz asked if the lyric had anything to do with incontinence.

“No, no, no,” Tulenkey reacted. “I’m just saying that the worst of the worst [can’t stop me], I still like the girl.”

Having said the show of a pump action gun in a video for his Kom was to depict “what happens on the street,” he lamented that “Ghanaians are not open-minded.” He blamed the educational system.

He observed “a pump action gun is accepted in a movie but it’s not accepted in a music video,” intimating this was inconsistent and indicative of a lack of “open-mindedness”.

To understand Tulenkey's repertoire, one need only recall the song that brought him to public notice – 2018's Proud F*ck Boys featuring Eddie Khae. The Kibi native, often employing dark humour, is fond of telling stories about "boys" who are obsessed with sex and "don't give a f*ck" searching for satisfaction.