A Year After Omanhene Pozo’s Death: Barima Sidney Remembers The Hiplife Star, Says He Must Be Celebrated

Barima Sidney With Omanhene Pozo

One year after the demise of veteran hip-life star, Omanhene Pozo, colleague musician Barima Sidney has remembered the ‘Wasei’ hit maker and his contribution towards the growth of the industry since the 90s until his untimely death on September 21, 2016.

Omanhene Pozo, who was known in private life as Emmanuel Amponsah, died at the 37 Military Hospital on Wednesday after suffering from an illness for some time.

He was popularly known for his hit songs including ‘Wasei’, ‘Kyenkyen Bi Adi Me Awu’, and ‘Me Dofo Adada Me’ ft Ewurama Badu.

In an exclusive interview with Modern Ghana, Barima Sidney, crooner of all time hit song “African Money” released between late 2007 and 2008, expressed sorrow over the loss of his friend, who was also a big brother and an inspiration to him.

The two have been together since 1994 when they both attended West African Senior High School with Pozo being Sidney’s senior.

Again, they were members of the ‘Nananom’ group which emerged in the 1990’s until Pozo dismembered himself to go solo.

According to Sidney, Pozo was the originator of the fusion of ‘old and new school’ genre of music in Ghana and for this reason his dear friend whom he lost to death needs to be acknowledged accordingly and celebrated by the music industry and Ghanaians at large.

Sharing the fondest memory he has of Pozo, Barima narrated the first time they mounted the stage at the national theatre for a performance and the drama that surrounded the whole competition in which they were announced winners in the end.

He said “There are many memories I have about my friend and brother; the fondest one is the day we won the ‘Recognized ’96’. This was a big competition held at the National Theatre on 10^th August 1996. We couldn’t even register and it was Eddy Blay who registered us.”

“On the day of the performance, our other partner fell ill and so couldn’t come with us. It was just myself and Omanhene Pozo, just the two of us who had to mount the stage.”

“Pozo had his favourite song and I had mine too so we argued on which song to perform that day. Pozo said let’s do this song but I insisted that we did my favourite song.”

“Finally, I gave up and we submitted the song that Pozo wanted us to do but just when we were about to go on stage, it was announced that our cassette which contained our instrumental could not be found and so we had no choice than to quickly replace the lost cassette with my song.”

“The song was ‘Panyin Na Obi Nye Bi Da’, we performed that song and at the end of the day we won the competition out of 20 [competitors]. That was the Nananom group.”

Sidney says he remembers that day as if it happened only yesterday, when he and Omanhene Pozo broke down in tears after they had been announced winners of the competition.

“We wept over winning because in the beginning we thought we didn’t have any chance at all. Looking at the schools others came from, for ‘Nananom’ we felt we didn’t have a chance. It was one thing I can’t forget about Emma,” he narrated.

Asked what he missed about Pozo, Barima Sidney who won the Most Popular Song of the Year Award at the just ended Ghana Music Awards UK, with his ‘Onaaapo’ remix said he misses the big brother role that Omanhene Pozo played in his life right from senior high school.

He stated that even though he was more like the spokesperson for the ‘Nananom’ group, Pozo was still the big boy of the group as his name ‘Omanhene’ loosely translated ‘king of the town’, depicts.

“I miss when Pozo was still keeping me in checks right from WASS campus till his last day on his sickbed when he advised me to stop making political songs because people called him to complain all the time when I made a political song,” Barima Sidney disclosed.

He however, regretted how the contribution of Pozo toward the music industry has not been highlighted in the past and after his death.

According to Sidney, Pozo was the originator of ‘Old School’ and ‘New School’ collaborations and so his (Pozo’s) praises must be sang regarding that achievement he chalked while alive.

“It is sad that [Ghanaians] forget so easily. Omanhene Pozo started what we call the Old School and New School collaborations. He did the first one with Ewurama Badu, he did a collaboration with Alhaji K. Frimpong; C. K. Mann and all that.”

“He started that way of collaborations. He tried to blend the old school and new school together; he takes a song and remix it and put the raps in it. If he were alive today, he would be doing more,” Sidney told Modern Ghana.

Touching on some life lessons he learnt from Pozo, Sidney said he learnt from his ‘big bro’ to be patient and hard working.

“Pozo was perceived to be a hard guy. You will see him shouting and fighting especially when we go for shows and organizers fail to pay us, and we will get our money.”

“Interestingly, round 2010, 2011, I noticed that Pozo had changed. He had totally changed into a different person all together. Now he was the one advising me on certain action I took.”

“When I get ‘mad’ over certain happenings, he would rather say Kofi be calm. I learnt a lot from that because had it not be him, certain things could happen that I would regret later,” Sidney revealed.

Unfortunately for Sidney, Pozo’s death coincides with a national holday – Founder’ Day. This means that for a long time, if not forever, he would not be able to enjoy his holiday with much fun because memories of his friend would deprive him of such.

Earlier on Thursday, September 21, he shared a video of himself and Pozo which was the last one they shot together before he died.

Click the link below to watch the video