Nigerian musician, Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, popularly known as Ruggedman, has replied Blackface who said the former had lost focus.

Background: Blackface had said that Ruggedman broke into the entertainment industry through his hit song, ‘Ehen Ehen,’ where he addressed the issues of plagiarism but that ever since then, he had stopped talking about the problems that still persist till date.

Ruggedman replies: Ruggedman penned an open letter to Blackface. In the letter, Ruggedman referred to Blackface as  a ‘veteran up and coming artiste’ and ‘a town crier’ who only seems to complain and nag whenever he is faced with a camera.

In an interview with Punch, the rap artiste said that he would not take issues with Blackface. He further said that he was shocked that the singer mentioned his name in the interview.

Talking about the open letter, Ruggedman said, “The open letter I wrote to Blackface is actually the only thing I want to put out about the matter; I don’t want to take issues with him by talking about it endlessly. I received so many calls from people about this issue but I declined to talk about it any further. I don’t have any problem with him. The only time I spoke about him was when Tuface wanted to stage a protest but decided not to go through with it and he started talking about Tuface. He made statements like, ‘Is it an artiste that has women everywhere that would lead a protest?’ All I said was that he should relax because he was making it too obvious that he nursed a grudge against Tuface and he should let it go. Since then, we have been cool and I had even put his name as part of the performing artistes for a show that I want to do next year. We had spoken about it and he agreed to be a part of the show only for him to say unpleasant things about me in an interview.

“He said that after my hit song, ‘Ehen Ehen,’ there has been nothing from me. Even though the interviewer mentioned that I had other songs that did very well, he said that I had stopped preaching against people copying themselves in the industry. He said I should have continued the trend and I was amazed at the statement. He wants me to keep recycling concepts without evolving because that is what he has been doing and that is why I wrote what I wrote that every opportunity he gets to be in front of a camera, he keeps saying the same thing that they stole his song, ‘African Queen.’ He should go and sing another song. Like I said, I love his album, ‘Ghetto Child’, because he had some social conscious songs on the album.

“To me, calling my name in the interview was not necessary but as he has done so, I decided to answer him and this is the last time I would talk about it. I never had any issues with him; I guess it was the alcohol they gave him there that loosened his tongue and he began to talk anyhow.”

Omoleye Omoruyi

Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram