ENE Yatt makes Ghana conduit for musical success
Mr Eazi is perhaps the biggest Nigerian act to popularise Ghana’s thriving pop scene to his countrymen.
But it appears the musical link between both West African countries isn’t tenuous. The duo of ENE Yatt, Nigerian-born Afropop crooners, establishing their presence from Accra amid the coronavirus pandemic, is testament to that.
“Well, Nigeria happens to be home because that is where we are from, but we've always had that Ghana connection one way or the other so that basically drew us to both countries when it comes to our music and its journey.
“Ghana has played a great role in our musical journey and on that note we've been pushing pretty hard to connect the dots and use Ghana as a path to travel our musical journey and, in the end, cut across Nigeria more and also the world,” the duo said in a recent interview.
ENE Yatt comprises two brothers; born Elvis Pamo Owugah and Richard Ebi Owugah in Rivers State, they attended Immaculate Comprehensive College, Omoku, before moving to Ghana after secondary school and they have lived here since then.
Their music career kick started with a dance group (Exodus Dancers) from secondary school, leading to the formation of a three-man group then known as The Bounce. A friend, Justice Eke (Lil Gizzy) completed the trio.
The group split when the brothers moved to Ghana in 2009. ENE Yatt came into being in 2011. The name is an acronym for Evil Never Ends (ENE) and You Are The Truth (YATT).
“Our vision is just to be heard and to stand as a symbol of hope for the new generation, giving them insight that anything is possible if only they never give up on their dreams and stay believing.
“In the next five years, the aim is to see our music cause that change which we hope to see in the world, to see lives transformed through our sounds. And to see people love more rightly," the brothers said.
Their first single ‘Let Your Body Go’ was released in 2014, followed by fast-paced songs like ‘Skibobo’ and ‘Jofunmi’. In 2015, they put out ‘Egede’ and ‘No Man Bad’.
Recently, they released two songs; ‘Tell Me,’ which has a video on YouTube and ‘Compose’ which talks about “staying true to positivity no matter how much negative energy is thrown at you all through life.
“We have loads of unreleased songs which we plan on putting out pretty soon but first, we are focused on putting out a date for our JTG EP which is a seven-track EP featuring a couple of indigenous artistes from Ghana.
“After the EP drops, we have plans of shooting a couple more videos of the songs on the EP. And while that is ongoing, we are going to spice it up with upcoming projects too," the duo said.
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They are also looking to leverage on high-level collaborations as they are now signed to World Arts Agency in Johannesburg for management.
”We’ve been having a conversation with the management team of Sarkodie to have him jump on our EP but it turns out he's been busy with a couple of his projects too. So, we are still hoping to hear something positive anytime soon.
“We do have collaborations with a couple of artistes here in Ghana; in 2016 we dropped the biggest Dab song in Ghana and the impact was huge.”
And how has the coronavirus pandemic changed their outlook towards life?
“Considering what the current situation of the world is, I'd say now more than ever we do need to know that no matter what, we do need unity to make anything work,” they said. “Many have lost their lives but in the end, we must stand together in unity to win this war.”