According to rapper Ruth ‘Eno Barony’ Adjoa Amankwah Nyame Adom, members of her church prayed against her hoping for her music career to fail.
“I remember they put my picture in the church and prayed over it that my music wouldn’t work and that nothing would work for me,” she said in a Prime Morning interview on Accra-based Joy Prime TV.
The church believed her music was demonic, she explained.
Concerning her family, especially her father, Reverend Abraham Nyame Adom’s, outlook is on her career choice, she said: “We’re cool, but it wasn’t easy at first because convincing their parents to be a rapper is difficult for boys, let alone a girl,” she said.
It was not always like this, however.
“I was initially concealing it. At first, I kept it hidden. I hid it until I couldn’t anymore because I was on TV and everywhere, and it became an issue,” Eno narrated and noted: “I had no choice but to flee the house.”
Growing up in a conservative Christian home, led by a public spiritual leader, she could not be caught listening to secular music but she had a secret admiration for rappers and top among her influences were female rap stars Mzbel and Abrewa Nana.
In a new song, ‘Don’t Judge Me’, that has been warmly received by members of the music listening public, Eno raps: “The Church thinks I’m evil but when they see me pray and sing the Gospel, they plead to God to bring me back to His people.”
Her surprise collaborator, Dee Wills, son of the charismatic Action Chapel International founder Archbishop Nicolas Duncan Williams, also sings at the tail of the song, “When I pray, He answer[s]. He [is] my God and my provider. Don’t judge me.”
Generally, the song appears to admonish the church for being in the habit of pointing accusatory fingers at members who behave divergently, especially stereotyped children of pastors.