This weekend, there was a huge debate in Happy FM’s studios after Sydney told Graphic Showbiz Reggie Rockstone wasn’t the originator of Hip Life.

The discussion which happened on Showbiz Xtra with Dr. Cann gave sensational Fante rapper Pappy Kojo an opportunity to contribute to the discourse after Root I of TV3’s Music Music fame had given an elaborate account of what happened in 1994 when the wave started.

Pappy told Happy 98.9 FM;

“I’m a fan of Hip Life and what’s happening on radio this morning is interesting and I want to contribute to the discussion.

What I believe is that Hip Life is about impact and the number of people you can gather and influence.

Back then in Takoradi, when we started following Ghanaian rap music, even though there were rappers before Reggie came, he was the one who made it cool.

Reggie was the one who was rocking the camouflage, his album touched several subjects including girls, sex, homosexuality and everything.

I get where Sydney is coming from and I’m a big fan of his music, I know his lyrics and all but if you listen to Sydney’s songs, they were about Scent No, Paano Hwew and fun music but Hip Life is not all about fun.

Hip Life is supposed to carry a message, it’s a culture and not just about clubbing and Scent No and Paano Hwew.

It needs to carry a message and Reggie did that with Maka Maka, Mena Me Kay3, Meka and the influence was big.

With Obrafour, his style is somehow from Reggie, He came with Pae Mu Ka, Asem Sebe, Tofa, and gave a continuity to what Reggie was doing. I think Reggie mentions Obrafour’s name a lot because Obrafour did the same thing.

He was rapping about Kwame Nkrumah and traditional stuff. He was given us wise sayings and no one was doing that. Everyone was concentrated on doing fun music.

All I’m saying is, even if there were rappers before Reggie, there was white rappers before Eminem, there was Vanilla Ice, but how come we say Eminem is the greatest white rapper because he did it in a great way.

Of course there was rappers before Reggie, TH4Kwages, but the way Reggie brought it was different”, he explained.