Black Sherif is nothing like the charged presence that drives his growing repute as a human dynamo. His demeanour is polite, self-effacing and, since blasting off internationally with offerings like ‘Second Sermon’ and ‘Kwaku the Traveller’, often wakes up exhausted from the previous night’s gigs. The country’s biggest discovery of 2021, the 20-year-old’s ‘overnight’ viral success story isn't so overnight at all. While banging on his desk in Kumasi Academy three years ago to melodies he heard in his head, the rapper, privately known as Mohammed Ismail Sherif Kwaku Frimpong, was already seriously nursing a career in music. Signed to American distribution company and record label EMPIRE, Black Sherif set out doing morose music – records that unfurled as soundtracks for sad boys. In his recent undertakings, however, the artist has taken another route: channelling vivid tales of his struggles into piercingly passionate and triumphant anthems, while calling attention to his numerous autofictions, which seem to underpin his offerings (he has called himself Kwaku Killer, Kwaku Frimpong, Killer Blacko, and now Kwaku the Traveller).
“I am real,” Black Sherif tells me ahead of the release of the attending video for ‘Kwaku The Traveller’. “I preach real-life stories and my personal struggles. It’s about encapsulating my experiences and reality, which obviously resonates with everyone. This means that my lyrics have a positive influence on my fans and drive them to achieve their goals.”
