All You Need To Know About Highlife Musician Richie Rich
In showbiz circles, he is well-known
as Richie Rich but in private life, he is Richard Nana Adjei Amponsah
and he was born on the 5th day of March 1986 to Mr. and Mrs. Kwame Adjei
at Kwahu Atebie in the Eastern Region of Ghana. At the tender age of
3, his mother sent him to Accra to stay with his garandmother, Madam
Abena Duruwaa where he began Kindergarten at St. Thomas Preparatory
School in Abeka, Accra. At the age of 5, he was moved to Fadama Primary
School also in Accra due to pecuniary necessities. He continued at Class
4 in Fadama School.
He was taken back to the village
where he was born when school vacated but did not have the chance to
return to Accra when school re-opened, because his Grandmother failed
to pick him back. From Class 4 in Fadama School, he was promoted to
Class six in the village school (Oboyan LA Primary/JSS) where he completed
his Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Richie Rich stayed at home for a
year before gaining admission into a Senior Secondary School (SSS) because
money was still a problem to his parents who were only traders. He began
and completed his Senior Secondary School education at Abetifi Presbyterian
Secondary School (APSEC) in the year 2000.
He stayed at Asesieso near Abetifi
for about a year and later moved to stay with his big sister in Accra,
specifically Adenta in 2002 in search of greener pasture. He got a job
at Accra Brewery for few months and then moved on to Interplast for
3 months.
Richie discovered his talent in
music when he was first brought to Accra. He was a good listener and
could lip-sync and imitate artistes such as Michael Jackson and Pozzo
Hayes when he was only five years old. Anytime he visited the farm at
the village, he was asked to sing any song and he always sang well.
He was encouraged to do music because
his parents knew that would be the best platform for him to gain prominence
and importance in society. It’s important to note other members of
his family could also sing very well.
He joined his Church Choir at the
age of 13 and could sing all music parts such as tenor, soprano and
the likes. Later on, he became the leader of the choir. Richie’s interest
in music developed more when he started listening to Charles Kwadwo
Fosu (Daddy Lumba) and Ofori Amponsah. He could sing exactly the way
they did.
Most importantly, Richie started
writing his own songs at the age of 12 with inspiration from some highlife
legends. While in Accra, he stayed a block away from Czar; a musician
and a businessman but he never knew Czar until Czar’s cousin who knew
of his talent in music introduced him to Czar. Not long afterwards,
Czar met him and played some instrumentation from the songs he was about
to do and Richie sang some choruses for him which really impressed him.
Czar quickly arranged and sent him
to the recording studio to work on ‘Araba Lawson’. By then, Ofori
Amponsah was also recording ‘Rakia” which featured Kofi Nti. Czar
introduced Richie to Ofori at the studio where they sang the Chorus
for ‘Araba Lawson’ together. Ofori was also impressed with Richie
and as a result, he signed him up and started working with him.
Whilst with Ofori Amponsah, they
released 3 albums; Emmanuella, Odwo, Sampson and Delilah. ‘’Emmanuella’’
won the award for Highlife song of the Year as well as the Highlife
Album of the Year at the Ghana Music Awards. Richie was featured on
the following songs by Ofori Amponsah; Emmanuella, Acatapoli, Medofia,
Aliya, Kokompe, Adwendwen and Broken Heart. He also featured on songs
such as Akonta, Brand New Car and Odo Nkoa by Kofi Nti. Akonta was nominated
in the Highlife Song of the Year category of the Ghana Music Awards.Richie
featured on some of Czar’s songs which include Araba Lawson, Befe
m’ano, Don’t Go and Mercy Lokko which eventually won Hiplife Song
of the year at the Ghana Music Awards.
Richie released his own album ‘Akwaakwa’
in 2011 and has also done several Radio and TV commercials which include
the Obaapa tomatoes commercial for TV and radio, Obaapa mackerel song,
Pusher song (Odwo) and Joy Daddy song using (Yentie Obiaa by Daddy Lumba).
Richie performed with Czar at the Accra International Conference Centre
in 2006 at the December to Remember show. He also performed with Ofori
Amponsah and Friends at the National Theater. Richie performed ‘Akwaakwa’
on the stage of Ghana Most Beautiful 2012 and has equally performed
with various live bands. He can virtually take any highlife or African
song and sing it like his own.
Rice with Stew is his favorite food
and loves to wear a cowboy hat, suit and Jeans.
He sees Daddy Lumba as his Mentor.
His dream is to tour the world with
very good and quality music. And to perform his brand of highlife music
with various live bands in the world. The piano is his favourite instrument
and as should be expected, he has started learning how to play it.
He is always determined to ensure
that his music life is always alive. He has been disappointed several
times by people who promised to help him in the music industry but he
has not allowed those disappointments to affect him negatively. He has
been able to muster courage through failure. Richie took a break from
music for about a year but by divine intervention, he met UBBS Entertainment
who readily decided to finance his music career and also manage him.
Richie has so far recorded three albums with UBBS Entertainment.
The first of
the three albums, ‘Nsoroma’ has just been released (August 2015)
and if the album is anything to go by, then it wouldn’t be wrong to
say that Richie
Rich is ready to take his rightful place in the music industry so far
as highlife music is concerned
