- Nana
Abrokwa was born 5 October, 1969 in Ghana. At the age of
10, he came to Germany with his mother, brothers and sisters. That
changed his life a lot and he learned a lot of new things. Nana had
music as a hobby from the early years and when he finished school,
he began as a DJ. He played at a lot of places and got kind of famous.
He was also starring in two German movies. Well he could as well be
an actor. Also he met Toni Cottura. They knew that they would
work together some time, but then Toni was successful with the famous
eurodance group Fun Factory and producing great hits for famous groups
like Backstreet Boys, ´N Sync and Marky Mark. Finally
Toni Cottura, with his partner Bulö left the Fun Factory and it was
finally time for them to work together with Nana.
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- "MC
Africa True" was NANA's first Rap-Name when he started rapping
and co-producing some songs for DJ David Fascher (for example Nana
worked on David Fascher's Single "Make The Crowd Go Wild".
Nana's first appearance on a big single, was as the group Darkness
with the single "In My Dreams" in 1995.
The music was programmed and arranged by Bülent. Nana is doing
a great and fast rap and that is more of a euro disco song.
Nana's
first solo song was released in late 1996 and was called "Darkman".
The song was a big success in Europe, especially in Germany, Austria,
Switzerland & the Benelux. This was a new style of music that
Europe saw. This was the beginning of the European Rap & HipHop
era. The real breakthrough for NANA came with the next single, "Lonely".
It was a super-hit of 1997 europe-wide. "Lonely", stayed
over 1 month at number 1 in Germany! Then the people outside Germany
began to hear this fabulous song and it really got big. It reached
the top5 on most of the charts in European countries.
- Nana
followed with the singles "Let It Rain",
"He´s Comin´" & "Too Much
Heaven" from his debut album "Nana - The
Album". That albums features many acts like Jan VD Toorn,
Jonestown, Pappa Bear, Alex Prince & Mazaya, and a lot of other
Booya Family members. There are at least 2-3 more hit potentials on
the debut album of Nana, and it is concidered as the breakthrough
for the European Hip Hop & Rap music. Ecxept for the hit singles,
the songs "One Second", "Why?"
and "1,2,3 Are U Ready?" should be remembered.
Booya was the name of the record compay and the "gang".
Nana's all 3 of the following singles, all entered the top10 in Germany.
Because off the top-selling single "Lonely", Nana was already
famous and the people began to buy his next songs and they began comfortable
at the chart-tops all over Europe. In May 1998 came the 2nd Nana-album,
"Father". This was a new style that Nana
showed up. It was more of an R&B/Rap album. With slower songs
and more grown lyrics. From the album songs, except for the singles,
the songs "Nigga 4 Life", "G.O.D.",
"Pocket Full Of Memories" and "Do
You Really Think You Know Me" should be remembered.
He released the songs "Remember The Time", "Dreams"
and "Father" from that album, and they
all , as usual for that time, scored big in the charts. "Dreams"
is a song that reminds a lot of the smashit "Lonely".
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Nana first single from the 3rd album, "I Wanna Fly (Like
An Eagle)" was released in November 1999 and it is a
wonderful ballad about freedom. Then there was a big break and the
planned thid album was canceled. This wa a huge shame, because there
was a lot of fuss about the album, and for example Viva TV had a one
hour Nana-special, and they played samples from some tracks of that
album. "Hate Has No Colour", "When
I Close My Eyes" and "I Stand Alone"
are only to be heard on that program. You can download the show in
the T-Music Forum. Two singles that we got hold of from that unreleased
album are "A New Day Is Born" and "Be
All You Can Be". This showes that Nana had worked hard
and this was planned to be a big release, and a defenite hit in the
charts again. But, as we said before the unnamed album was canceled.
We are now in contact with Nana himself, and he said in a telephone
call that he
himself didn't even hear those songs for years after that! They are
locked in the booya-bass. There were a lot of "typical-Nana-songs"
on that album. But “I wanna fly” was a flop and then the
Booya Family split up. Everybody left but Nana was the last man standing
(and even the first who joined the Booya Clan in 1996). Bülo
couldn’t release this album due to copyright problems (all the
producers and people who worked on the album left and so it is not
that easy to release this stuff). Nana recorded another Album in the
Booya studios. He said everybody of his friends who could hear some
of the tracks absolutely loved them. But since the Booya era was really
over and the music world changed a lot they didn’t release the
album as well. Nana left.
In 2001, Nana returned again, this time rapping in German on the single
"Du Wirst Sehen" (You will see). It was
a great hit in the German club scene, but far away from the old Darkman-days.
Nana was working on the new album which was going to be named "Global
Playa" and would be in both English and German. But gues
what. It was also canceled.
So, a lot of fans started to wnder if he ever would make a comeback.
This was a hot topic discussion at The T-Music Forum also.
But in early 2004, we catched some news that Nana was working hard
to get back on the scene, and in May of 2004 we got it confirmed.
The www.nana.de site opened again and to the big happyness, the fans
could celebrate that Nana was back for real!
On the webpage you could buy the new album "All Doors
In Flight No.7". From that album, the single "Butterfly"
was released, only thru the website. Then, the plans for the release
of "Ride With Me" was planned in early
2005, but after some conflicts with the music company, it got canceled.
2006 was a brand new start for the Darkman. A big promotion for the brand new and fantastic song "I Close My Eyes (Dust
In The Wind)" was started. Something went wrong and the single was pushed back. Then, again the plans switched and "Ride With Me" was going to be the comeback song, but that also got changed.
At the end of 2007, big things finally are hapening, thought the fans. Nana got signed to Universal Music Poland, and that increased the plans for a finally official release. The single "L.O.V.E." was supposed to be released, and the album "Believe", should follow shortly after. The "L.O.V.E." song was released, but only on two compilations. Then there was some problems with the Polish companies, and Nana moved on...more south, to Romania.
In the middle of 2008, the big announcment that so many have been waiting for, was finally hear. Nana's new album "12.Y.O", which means "12 years old" and refers to the amount of years since his "Darkman" debut single, was to be release in September 2008.
It's a double album. One that was suppose to be the "Believe" album, and one new album, where there are also four remakes of his old hits "Lonely", "Darkman", "He's Comin'", "Let it rain" and "Remember The Time". On the album he co-works with artists as Braheem, O.O.D, Sibela and Manuellsen. Also some of Romanias best artists, Korekt and Lavinia, helped Nana to do a Romanian version of Lonely'08 aswell. On the album, you find some typical Nana songs like "No Sun", "Where you belong" with that classic style, and also some songs with fresher sound as "Any 1 Out There", "If you were here" and "My Get Away". The albums first single is called "My Get Away", and is also available onn any online store lke iTunes or Musicstack! The Darkman is back folks!!
Check the Nana forum at T-Music to fins the latest news!
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