Gasmilla, known for his smash hit Telemo has said categorically that he originated Azonto and not Sarkodie as it is widely believed. Azonto is a dance and music genre which sprouted and spread from the ghettos and coastal ares of Ghana and soon became an international phenomenon.
The dance involves a set of hand movements that either mimic everyday activities or are meant to amuse an audience. Much credit has been given to Sarkodie for starting the movement with his You Go Kill Me
“I was pushing the whole brand of Azonto, I did a lot of documentaries.”While struggling to keep the genre alive, Gasmilla said he was faced with two key bottlenecks. Between people saying I wasn’t the originator and Sarkodie was, and then giving props to Fuse ODG because he was from ‘outside Ghana’,” he said, Ghanaians took everything from him because he “was just a young guy, no money, no proper structure.”
“Faced with those challenges, he “had to choose between myself as an artiste blowing or choosing to fight for Azonto when nobody is fighting for me because people knew the truth in this industry and still said Sarkodie was the originator of Azonto.”
“They wanted to give it to the biggest artiste in the country at the time who was Sarkodie because they thought that he could actually push the movement,” the International Fisherman added.
Gasmilla was born Odartei Lamptey Milla and he is popularly called International Fisherman. He announced his presence in the music industry with his somewhat hilarious single Abodatoi but it was his 2015 song Telemo which resonated his name far and wide.
