Ghana: Black Sherif shares new album The Villain I Never Was

The collection, highly anticipated in his home country, arrives weeks after his latest single ‘Soja’. This caps an impressive couple of years for the artist that has seen him serve up runaway hits like ‘Second Sermon’ and ‘Kwaku The Traveller’.

Though fuelled primarily by the rap subgenre of drill, the LP also experiments with rhythms like reggae and soca, as well as fusions of Ghanaian folk influences and R&B. Thematically, the project addresses a myriad of issues, including spirituality, love and loss, courage and life in the fast lane.

“It took everything to give life to this body [of work],” Black Sherif said ahead of the release of The Villain I Never Was. “The one thing in my life that I gave everything up for. There is life in this body, I hope it treats you good and speaks to you like I want it to.”

Born Mohammed Ismail Sherif, Black Sherif is a two-time winner of the 2022 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards and a four-time winner of the 2022 3Music Awards.

Days ago, he lost to French rapper Benjamin Epps in the Best International Flow category at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards.

He has enjoyed huge commercial success with songs like ‘Second Sermon’ and ‘First Sermon’, which were the two fastest-rising songs to reach one million streams on Boomplay. The artist has currently surpassed 100 million streams on the Africa-facing DSP.

Black Sherif will now take the new LP on the road, starting with London, UK, on 25 October followed by New York, US, on 6 November.