Sarkodie
Celebrated hip-hop artiste Michael Owusu Addo, known in showbiz as Sarkodie, made history by being the first artiste from Ghana to gain one million YouTube followers.
Sarkodie has continually engaged his audience through 266 video posts since joining the platform on December 2, 2012, amassing a total of 300,443,844 views as of July 14, 2023.
The remix of ‘Adonai’ with the late Castro has received 93 million views on YouTube, and is Sarkodie’s most popular video, followed by the smash song ‘Pain Killer’ with Runtown, which has gained 24 million views.
Shatta Wale, who joined the platform on November 19, 2012, has 964,000 subscribers and 272,229,350 views overall, making him the closest rival on the platform. With Joint 77, Addi Self, and Captan, Shatta Wale’s most watched video, ‘Taking Over,’ has garnered 19 million views.
Stonebwoy presently has 283 videos to his name and 653,000 subscribers on YouTube.
His contributions to the Ghanaian music industry have earned him numerous accolades, including the Vodafone Ghana Music Award for ‘Artiste of the Decade’.
He was announced the first winner of BET’s ‘Best International Flow’ artiste at the 2019 BET Hip Hop Awards.
He is also considered one of the major proponents of the Azonto genre and dance, and one of the most successful African rappers of all time.
In 2015, AfricaRanking.com ranked Sarkodie third on its list of the ‘Top 10 African Rappers of 2015.’
In the same year, The Guardian listed him as one of its top five hip-hop acts on the African continent.
He was ranked eighth on Forbes and Channel O’s 2013 and 2015 list of the ‘Top 10 Richest/Bankable African Artistes.’
In 2020, he won ‘Artiste of the Year’ during the Ghana Music Awards USA (GMA-USA).