“Ghana has played a great role in our musical journey and on that note, we’ve been pushing pretty hard to connect the dots here in Ghana so as to 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.
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 who are 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 aside that being the case we’ve always had that Ghana connect one way or the other so that basically made us drawn to both countries when it comes to our music and its journey.”
ENE Yatt is composed of two brothers. Born Elvis Pamo Owugah and Richard Ebi Owugah in Rivers State, they attended Immaculate Comprehensive College, Omoku, before moving to Ghana after their secondary school days. They have lived in Ghana ever since.
Their music career sputtered to a start in 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 to being in 2011. The name is an acronym for Evil Never Ends (ENE) and You Are The Truth (YATT).
“Our vision and aim is just to be heard and to stand as a symbol of hope for the new generation, giving them that insight that anything is possible if only they never give up on their dreams and stay believing,” the brothers said before adding that “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.”
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’.
Ene YATT recently released two songs; ‘Tell Me’ has a video freely available on YouTube while‘Compose’ 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 artists from here in Ghana,” the duo said.
“After the EP drops, we do have plans of shooting a couple more videos off the songs on the EP. And while that is ongoing we are going to spice it up with more upcoming projects too.”
They are also looking to leverage on high-level collaborations. Just as they are now signed to World Arts Agency in Johannesburg for management.
”We’ve been having a convo 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, according to words from his management. So, we are still hoping to hear something positive anytime soon. We do have collaborations with a couple of artists here in Ghana; in 2016 we dropped the biggest Dab song in Ghana and Africa in general, the impact was huge.”
And how has the 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.”
