The air around him held a slight chill so he rubbed his palms together to stay alert. Rihanna sat across a few seats away, Lemar was two rows behind and Akon was visible from where he sat at far right. Goose pimples formed beneath his knuckles and the lump in his throat wouldn’t stop growing. When the emcee yelled “Batman Samini” as MOBO’s best African act for 2006, he just about leapt from his seat immediately before his instincts caught up midway.
“That was a very emotional moment for me but I got hold of myself and strutted to the stage. Before that my legs had been shaking the whole time and Laurencia my publicist kept telling me to calm down,” Batman said as he sat down to chat with JIVE at the serene lounge of Alisa Hotel. “She told me to keep my speech short when I got up there, as if she knew I was going to get it. I picked up the plaque and the first thing I said was this is MOBO [music of black origin] and I’m from COBO [continent of black origin]. The crowd just went ecstatic. Then I went backstage did the most interviews ever in my career. I was live on major BBC channels across the globe and that felt amazing”
He woke up the next day and his face had been immortalized in the newspapers in London.
MOBO is a big leap for any artiste this side of the equator. So Samini fading his old (Batman) tag couldn’t have come at a better time. The world knows a different Batman and a dreadlocked black boy without a cape showing up for the award would have been just ridiculous. His album ‘Samini’ is getting worldwide distribution on iTunes currently and the last figures showed it was the most downloaded in the African artistes’ category.
“It hasn’t been easy coming up you know. I came straight from the ghetto to rep this far so now every artiste in this country knows it’s possible to cross over. My next step is to work towards the Grammy awards and that will happen, just watch”.
As with his other projects, the strength of ‘Samini’ lies in its refusal to compromise, never overreaching, offering something to the mainstream rather than the reverse. Word has it that Jay-Z, Craig David and Akon are already clamoring for duets with the free styling reggae-calypso general. The award he says has brought him closer to a big dream he has held onto since he learnt to rock a crowd.
His publicist thinks this is the break talented artistes need for a fulfilling career. So far every producer on the album is getting some exposure through a channel feeding a non-Ghanaian and neutral audience who might be hearing music from this side of the Atlantic for the first time. This could also mean artistes dropping albums in the coming months are going to sound very much like Samini.
“I set out to make Samini an idol and I think I succeeded in making it happen sooner than I envisaged. We have been really focused and it looks like the effort has paid off. It’s nice to work with someone forcing Ghanaian music to evolve. The bigger things are in the works and his fans will soon see him in the big leagues soon,” Laurencia said.
Samini says he is looking at working with some major international producers and artistes on his next album. In the mean time he will be reaching out to local producers experimenting with some alternative music for another club banger.
