Over a decade ago, one Ghanaian artist was struggling and hustling just to get one square meal to eat a day. Charles Nii Armah Mensah Jnr. had found minimal success as Bandana but then became irrelevant and his career stalled.
However, he rebranded from Bandana the hiplife artist to Shatta Wale the dancehall artist, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In a recent interview with Joy Fm, Shatta Wale reveals where he got the idea to change his stage name from.
According to him, during the time he was struggling, God himself told him that he has to change his name if he ever wants to be successful once again.
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“…I was really struggling. So I woke up and just prayed to God. I said God I beg you, if you will give me another chance for this thing because the way man dey suffer, you for give me an idea,” he said.
“All what I heard from God was, change your name. And I was like, but Bandana be cool o so I no go fi change. And he was like, I changed peoples’ names in the Bible and so if you can also change your name, I believe I can push you up.”
Shatta said after that chat with God, the only name that could come to his mind was Wale. WALE, according to him, is an abbreviation he came up with which means ‘World Acclaimed Lyrical Entertainer’.
After getting the Wale, he said he wanted to add something else to it.
“So I said what can I add to the Wale to make it strong, the only word that I could spell in my mind was Shatta. And Shatta in Jamaica is like real bad one. You know, somebody that people fear.” he revealed.
Source: GhanaCelebrities.Com