The American Dream Or A Thug Life, Which Is Yaw Tog Aspiring For. “Yaw Tog appears as a calm, rapt, and disciplined teenager who wants to make it to the top with music. Nonetheless, he is losing it. His recent bizarre public utterances and antics are bogging.” Grace found Yaw Tog, a teenage rapper from Kumerica [Kumasi], in 2020.
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He wasn’t known until U.K. Twitter blew him up in late 2020 after releasing his breakthrough single, “Sore”, featuring O`kenneth, City Boy, Reggie, and Jay Bahd. Yaw Tog, O`kenneth, City Boy, Reggie, and Jay Bahd were collectively known as Asakaa Boys. He later broke up with them after refusing to sign a label deal with them. All he wanted was to go solo after his boys bolstered his rise to prominence.
He sparked beef rumors with the Asakaa Boys when he deleted their verses on the remix of “Sore” featuring U.K-born Ghanaian rapper Stormzy and Tema-based rapper Kwesi Arthur.
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“I didn’t sign their [Asakaa Boys] record label deal and it came out from them since I didn’t sign their deal. They can’t work with me again and things started from [deletion] of my verses and stuff they did together,” Yaw Tog said in a now-deleted tweet.
He recognizes their support, though.
“I think I need to clear this. [I’m] not beefing anyone in this music thing, yeah. I did a song with the Asakaa Boys and it was for love thing and support. And fine, I can’t ignore the Asakaa Boys in my storytelling [because]. They [are] part of my success story. I appreciate them. They [are] part of my success story,” he tweeted and deleted later after heavy backlash.
His recent bizarre public utterances and antics are bogging. Plain arrogance could be spotted in his tweets (which he has deleted a chunk of them) when “Sore” went viral on social media. Stormzy’s link-up even exacerbated his antics.
When he received the “Hip-hop/Hiplife Song of the Year” award at the just ended Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, he didn’t focus on crediting those who helped him rise to prominence. Instead, in his acceptance speech, he used the big platform to send a message to his haters.
This week, he appeared on TV3, where he claimed that ‘he made Stormzy more popular in Ghana’ and admitted that the U.K. rapper made him ‘more popular,’ too. For some reason, he is right about the growth of Stormzy’s popularity in Ghana in recent times. Stormzy is well known among young music listeners in Ghana (unless you are into only local content), even before Yaw Tog came into the scene. There have been several occasions where he represented Ghana on big stages. His 2017 “Gang Signs & Prayer” album made so great impact in Ghana. His popularity grew even bigger when Sarkodie praised him during an interview on the “After Sessions” show in 2016 and the news of their upcoming collaboration in 2019. The fact is that over 500,000 of the first million views from “Sore” remix came from Stormzy’s fans who are based in Accra, London, Birmingham, New York, Paris, and Milan, according to YouTube’s Charts & Insights analytics. That said, Yaw Tog’s influence and contribution to Stormy’s recent fame in Ghana can’t be ruled out entirely from the picture.
But, what happened to ‘no comment’ during his interview? This simple response could have saved him from the embarrassment he is enduring at the moment. Notwithstanding, we can’t, if truth be told, censure him. Because, he is young and foolish, and famous. Fame is eating into his head. Moreover, he is trying so hard to live the drill and hip-hop lifestyle (thug/gang life). Any young artiste who performs hip-hop/drill goes through this phase in their career but only a few come out of it.
From my observations, he wants to establish that he is a thug. The gang signs he throws in his music videos, lyrics, and public utterances are evident enough. He should go ahead, but he should stop creating unnecessary enemies for himself. As someone who is still schooling, his security is at stake if he commits himself to thug life.