Sarkodie talks about new album Jamz

The outlook of his just-released Jamz album appears to cast the artist as one in pursuit of hits, with the dance-ready 10-tracker parading a glamorous guest list representing a strong force of Afrobeats prodigies, including Joeboy, Oxlade, Cina Soul and Black Sherif, to name a few.

“I’m a rapper but I’m a musician in general and I love to touch on all genres – especially if I like them,” he tells me just hours before the album’s release. He is clad in all black, save for his white sneakers and socks. His face, blank with what I suspect is the fatigue attending his pre-release press run, is partly concealed behind oversized sunglasses.

“So, I don’t necessarily chase a radio hit, I just happen to chance on a beat that happens to be a radio hit,” he continues. “I don’t sit down to plan. It comes organically. If I get a production that suits that, I’m gonna do it, but I make sure that I don’t deliberately try to interfere with the creative process – it creates itself.”

The melodies on Jamz were inspired by his recent trips to Zanzibar and Mykonos in Greece. For Sarkodie, the album unfolds as a “soundtrack to the life that I’m living at this point. Creatively, that’s where I was and where I am at this point, just enjoying life with the people I cherish the most.”

Sarkodie admits that some of his previous releases may have been somewhat particular, requiring listeners to be Sarkodie fans in order to get full satisfaction. But on the new record, which he likens to a carefully curated playlist, the sound is a little more accessible. And here he finally cracks a smile: “You can put the tracks on replay and still enjoy them. They’re all smash hits, so what better name than Jamz.”

Sarkodie can’t say where Jamz ranks on his catalogue, which dates back to his explosive 2009 debut Makye. Mary, the 2015 live album dedicated to his late grandmother, would be among his all-time favourites, but that is as far as he cares to elaborate. “I know it’s just an era where this is what it calls for, basically,” he says.

On the motivation to release a new collection barely a year after the hip hop-leaning No Pressure album, he says: “I think it comes from the feedback I get from what I do. When you have fans that care about what you’re doing, it’s only right that you keep going.

“I’ve tried not to lose the passion and what made me fall in love with music. It was nothing about topping charts or having the biggest record. It’s about just doing music because you love it. And if you don’t lose that, I think you can end up always wanting to record.”

The conversation shifts to hip hop in the time of Afrobeats. Sarkodie’s forte has always rested in the US street genre. Indeed, part of what expedited his rise in Ghana’s mainstream was his spry and witty freestyle delivery. Sarkodie is among only a few rappers who have successfully navigated the Afrobeats climate, which is primarily driven by a singing culture. Instead of denying this reality, the rapper has relied on the genre’s leading creators for his hooks. This has ensured his expansion to new audiences while staying true to his rap roots. 

“A lot of commercial music tends to be like dance music, and you don’t wanna miss out. Yes, rap is good, in Africa people love it, but the masses also wanna hear some big records. As a rapper, you can bring that same thing on commercial records and that’s what I’ve been doing over the years ... I just wanna make sure that I make music from the purest place possible.”