Since the issue of Obrafour suing Drake for copyright infringement came to the fore, there have been a controversy over the ownership of the intellectual property in question. One name that has popped up and is being bandied around concerning this copyright brouhaha is Ghana's very own Mantse, whose iconic voice was actually the ‘element’ sampled from Obrafour’s "Oye Ohene" (Remix) – an alleged “diss” song to Lord Kenya aka LK.
Despite the fact that Mantse is often credited as the founder of the Chale Wote Street Arts Festival, very little is known about this enigmatic bloke and his inestimable contributions to the show business (showbiz) industry of Ghana. For this reason, there isn't a more opportune time to put a spotlight on him than now. As they say, “Now or never”!
Melvin Nii Mantse Aryeequaye, mononymously known as "Mantse", emerged on Ghana’s entertainment scene as a teenage rapper in the late 90s. He was a member of Funky Functure – a high school rap music group he formed with his schoolmates from Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School (Presec) at Legon in Accra.
Funky Functure gained some popularity when they featured on the track 4, titled "Ma Mendwen Meho", off Obrafour's first album "Pae Mu Ka" (released in 1999). On "Ma Mendwen Meho", Mantse (known then as "Melvin") delivers the first rap verse and the other members of Funky Functure follow in quick succession. The other featured rappers viz. Alhaji Flesh (Nima), Ayewa, Cy Lover aka “The Funky African” and Dr. Poh (of "Na Who Cause Am" fame) also took their turn to exhibit their individual prowess in rap on this Obrafour song.
Later, Mantse would ditched music to pursue a career in broadcasting at Radio Gold 90.5 frequency modulation (FM). According to his long-time friend, Edward Nana Poku Osei, widely known by the moniker “Hammer”, he (Hammer) was the one who advised him to quit music and do broadcasting instead.
In an interview with seasoned Ghanaian broadcaster, Andy Dosty on Hitz 103.9FM’s “The Library” show last year, Hammer remarked, “I actually made him stopped rap because I always told him that he would do better on radio, because I thought his voice was crazy silky. His voice was bigger than rap. It was a broadcasting kind of voice…”
I concur with Hammer’s opinion. Mantse’s velvety voice is the silkiest smooth male voice I have ever heard in my life, and ‘tis an understatement to say that this dusky dude has a perfectly good speaking voice which endears him to people who come into contact with him.
On Radio Gold, he presented a music show called “HipHop Nation” on Fridays (if my memory serves me right. LOL.). Coupled with this, he was one of the pundits on Radio Gold’s late afternoon Saturday music chart/entertainment discussion show called “Solid Gold Countdown”.
Back in the day, Channel R 92.7FM (now 3FM) and Radio Gold 90.5FM were the only media platforms that allocated a regular time slot for discussing entertainment/showbiz issues. And Mantse was part of the very few entertainment industry folks who pioneered the culture of “entertainment punditry” in Ghana, which revered critics like Arnold Asamoah-Baidoo and Kwame Dadzie are known for today. Hats off to media/radio veterans like DJ Abio, B.B. Menson (The Virus), DJ Oxygen, Kwasi Aboagye, Prime Eye, et al.
It is important to note that, Mantse didn’t quit music altogether. He continued to hang around Hammer and was still laying his vocals on intro/outro of songs Hammer was producing for artists from his “The Last Two” camp. Unlike on Obrafour’s “Pae Mu Ka” album where he could be heard saying only “Last Two!” on outros of some of the songs, Mantse’s silky voice featured prominently on subsequent tracks, albums and music compilations produced by Hammer. The “Execution Diary” (2004), “Sounds of our Time” (2005), “The Crusade of the Lost File” (2006) and Ayigbe Edem’s “Volta Regime” (2007) readily come to mind.
After his short stint at Radio Gold, “The Signature” (as Mantse was affectionately called at Hush Hush Studios, where Hammer was based) reincarnated as a video editor at Metro TV, then owned by Talal Fatal – a Ghanaian businessman of Lebanese extraction. At Metro TV, he worked in the video editing department and was the principal video editor of the station.
Beyond this, he hosted and produced “Music Box” – a 30-minute music show dedicated to showing Ghanaian music videos, predominantly Hiplife (our local version of American HipHop). In those days, the few terrestrial TV stations operating in the country did not have this style of TV format, unlike in recent times where there are even a 24-hour TV channels like 4Syte TV and 3Music that have devoted most of their programming schedule to broadcasting music videos and entertainment contents.
As a matter of fact, this style of TV programming was simply uncommon on our TV screens back then. Thus, Mantse’s “Music Box” show on Metro TV served as an effective conduit for our local music videos. VIP’s “Besin” video, for instance, gained traction through its constant airplay on “Music Box”. Hitherto, people could normally view this kind of contents via VHS cassettes and/or video compact discs (VCDs).
Still at Metro TV, Mantse also became a voice-over artist. He provided voice-overs for TV ads and programmes that aired on the TV channel. I remember when Metro TV acquired rights to Mexican telenovela, “Cuando Seas Mia”, and needed to dub this Spanish-language drama series in English before televising it to viewers in Ghana, Mantse was one of the voice-over artists used for this cause. Also, he did numerous voice-overs for the MTN Soccer Academy - a football reality TV show that used to be shown on Metro TV. A bitter dispute between him and Talal Fatal would lead to his voluntary departure from Metro TV.
He later ended up as an entertainment journalist/editor of JIVE newspaper. Furthermore, he dabbled in artist management and worked with musicians like MzBel as a manager for a while. That is not all, Mantse also ventured into making music videos and produced some ‘top-flight’ videos for a handful of Ghanaian artists.
In 2007, MTV Base and Shell (the British multinational oil and gas company) teamed up to create a project called "Making the Video Challenge with Shell", which was aimed at improving the quality of music video production in Africa. It was designed to challenge and empower young directors/moviemakers in Africa to develop their skills in music video making.
Through this MTV Base/Shell initiative, experienced international directors from America/Europe got to mentor and work together with their African peers, and also helped make free music videos for a number of African artists in the participating countries, which were Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
Out of his desire to hone his craft in making music videos, Mantse took part in the 2nd edition of the "Making the Video Challenge with Shell" in 2008. During the audition in Ghana, the participants were put in 4 groups (4 members each) and then tasked to come up with the most original and creative conceptual video for a given song. The 4 teams competed against each other to create a music video, under the mentorship and supervision of eminent American video director, Anthony Mandler.
The Mantse-led group (which also had Gerald Ogee Gyimah of Phamous Philms) made a music video for Kwaw Kese’s “Who Be You” (Remix) featuring Professor Jay from Tanzania. It was adjudged the best music video from Ghana and selected to compete with the best music videos from the other participating African countries – Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
At the end of this pan-African challenge, the “Who Be You” (Remix) video, Mantse and his posse of Ghanaian video directors had worked on, placed second (1st Runner-up). This was a real feather in Mantse’s cap at the time owing to the fact that he was quite green in this particular field, vis-à-vis directing and making music videos.
It is worth mentioning that, Mantse Aryeequaye juggled some of the aforementioned roles with working at Eagle Productions Limited. Together with the company’s Founder/CEO, Juliet Yaa Asantewaa Asante (a renowned Ghanaian filmmaker/actress) and other great writers which included the legendary Kwaku Sintim-Misa aka KSM, they contributed to the “Entertainment Today” magazine, published by Eagle Productions.
In the days of yore, the dominant medium for content consumption was the print media (that is newspaper and magazine). Before they were superseded by the Internet/social media, newspapers and magazines (not forgetting books in general) were really patronised by the general public. And in Ghana, “Entertainment Today” magazine enjoyed such good patronage, and was widely acclaimed as Ghana’s entertainment bible.
The success of the “Entertainment Today” magazine ostensibly birthed its audiovisual version, also named “Entertainment Today” (TV Show). Aired weekly on Metro TV with Dzifa Gbordzi as the host, Mantse and his colleague at Eagle produced very entertaining local entertainment contents that amused viewers of the show greatly. It is no gainsaying that it was the most watched entertainment TV show around that time in this country.
As the CEO’s most trusted lieutenant, Mantse was given the carte blanche to work on productions/projects for Eagle Productions. It was therefore not shocking to see him lead the team from Eagle Production to produce TV features in Ghana for “Studio 53” - a weekly half-hour lifestyle show that showcased cultural events, historical places, music, art, design, fashion and celebrity personalities from across the African continent on DStv’s M-Net Africa channel.
Eagle Productions had won the bid to produce stories in Ghana for this pan-African TV programme, and this came after M-Net had earlier on announced their intention to outsource the field production of “Studio 53” episodes in countries like Ghana to local TV production companies so as to lower production costs. Up to that time, M-Net’s TV crew were shuttling between South Africa and Ghana (via South African Airways) and also roving around Africa just to film contents for the show.
Eagle Productions owner, Juliet Asante had been acting in popular M-Net TV series “Tinsel” in Nigeria and so the partnership deal between her company and M-Net came as no surprise to a section of the public. She already had a strong working relationship with the top brass at M-Net. I ain’t in anyway trying to say that she and her team at Eagle lacked the gravitas to handle this herculean task.
But before the TV production team from Eagle, led by Mantse, hit the ground running, M-Net had to look for a new “Studio 53” field presenter for Ghana following the termination of Blakofe’s employment. Anita Erskine was eventually given the nod to come in Blakofe’s stead.
For those reading about this M-Net/Blakofe issue for the first time and may be wondering why she was fired. Here is the rundown! A few days before the “Ghana@50” Independence Day celebrations in 2007, our dear Ghanaian sister Blakofe granted an explosive interview to this same Mantse Aryeequaye alias “The Signature”, which was published in the latter’s JIVE newspaper.
In that interview, she made some comments about the government of Ghana and “Ghana@50” which were deemed inappropriate and insultingly disparaging by M-Net. Consequently, Blakofe was shown the exit door. But according to the grapevine, her dismissal was masterminded by some government officials in the then “Kuffour’s NPP Government”, and not out of M-Net’s own volition. Hmmmmm…!
Back to Mantse, chale! The folks at M-Net, or better still MultiChoice, admired the precision of his works for “Studio 53”. They were really bowled over by Mantse’s exceptional skills in TV productions. I recall he was even once invited over to M-Net studios in South Africa to be a part of one of the studio sessions with the show’s host, Gaetano Kagwa (the Ugandan housemate in Big brother Africa 1). In fact, I was really in seventh heaven when I saw my compatriot Mantse live on the M-Net set ‘co-hosting’ with the ever swashbuckling Gaetano, albeit at the tail end of the show.
No wonder, when he resigned from Eagle Productions to focus on growing his then fledgling companies – namely REDD Kat Pictures (a video production company) and Accra[Dot]Alt (an event company), M-Net severed all ties with them Eagle and subsequently passed on the “production baton” to another Accra-based TV production company known as “Ad-visors”.
Thenceforward, the crew at Ad-visors took up all the “Studio 53” tasks in Ghana up until the show was rebranded/renamed as “Studio 53 Extra”, and later simply called “53 Extra”, with more focus on Nigeria and Mzansi (South Africa) and a completely new format.
Now into arts exhibitions and events, Mantse devotes his life to promoting the arts and mural culture in Ghana through his “Chale Wote” event, which takes place annually on the “John Evans Attah Mills Street” at Jamestown in Accra.
It must be stated that, way before the Government of Ghana would launch flagship programmes/initiatives like the “The Year of Return”, “Beyond the Return” and “Destination Ghana”, this chap called Mantse was already singlehandedly promoting Ghana and also bringing in folks from across the globe to come experience the country. His brainchild, “Chale Wote”, since its inception in 2011, has been the magnet for the world to visit Ghana. It even attracts people from as far afield as “Antarctica” (excuse my hyperbole. LOL!).
So clearly, Mantse deserves a deep obeisance for his immense contributions to our country’s tourism, arts, culture and entertainment sector. He is simply peerless among his peers in this country and ought to be given a pat on the back.
The motivation for writing this epistle is not to "hype" Mantse but to chronicle and highlight his great exploits and achievements in our entertainment industry, spanning over two decades. I have always held the view that “great achievers” must be celebrated as they are alive “today” and not wait till they give up the ghost “tomorrow” before doing so. Such posthumous celebrations just do not make sense. Let’s honour our kith and kin alive.
Long live, Mantse – a veritable genius of our land! "Killer cut, blood, Killer cut...!"
By: Eugene Selorm Owusu
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