Music legend, Alfred Benjamin Crentsil,
simply known on stage as A.B. Crentsil, has
confirmed over a decade-old humourous
rumour that he was nearly beaten in the
north for one of his all-time hit songs – Atia.
AB narrated how he jumped a wall to safety
in a middle of a concert in the North with an
angry fan swearing to beat him up for
allegedly referring to Northerners as
drunkards.
For years, a story was told about A.B.
Crentsil, usually in a comic setting, that he
went to Bolgatanga, Upper East regional
capital, to stage a concert there.'
A.B. Crentsil, at his prime, and at his best on
the day, played all his known songs to thrill
his fans, but cautiously refrained from
singing Atia : the song that had generated
huge controversy which inadvertently
mocked natives of Bolga at the time.
The song talked about two guys from the area
who came down south to hustle for a decent
living. One took to drinking hard liquor –
akpeteshie, said to be 100% alcohol by
volume – and habitually got heavily
intoxicated. His obviously frustrated and
disheartened colleague advised him without
success to stick to their time-tested, less
volume liquor called Pito: a locally brewed
beer from their hometown.
But the drunk developed a thick skin and
warded off all the useful advice given him. To
cut a long story short, he died of his ignoble
behaviour.
Though the story has a moral footing,
according to A.B. Crentsil, it was lost on his
northern fans. They felt he was portraying
them as drunkards.
To cap the underlining humour, one of the
disgruntled fans stood out of the audience
and demanded why A.B. Crentsil would not
play his popular Atia song. The displeased
fellow proceeded to bare his teeth at the
musician and told him point blank – whether
he played the song or not he would be
beaten.
What made the rumour even more hilarious
was how the angry young man
reportedly 'butchered' the Twi language in a
way many northerners would when learning
the language.
Speaking on Joy FM's Personality Profile with
Bola Ray on Drive Time on Thursday A.B.
Crentsil confirmed the story was no rumour
but staggering truth which endangered his
life.
He recalled on that fateful day, he announced
to the audience that he was going to play one
more song to end the first part of the show,
that song was definitely not Atia .
The gentleman, he said, started cursing from
the crowd and swore that whether that track
was played or not he would not go scot free.
At this point, A.B narrated that he was
expecting nothing than beatings. He was
scared to the bone.
He said he quickly dashed to the backstage,
jumped out of a wall to safety. He left the
rest of the team behind to continue the
concert.
He said how he managed to come to Accra,
unhurt is history now.
Addressing the moral undertone of the song,
A.B said too much of everything is bad so he
was advising against excessive intake of
alcohol without any iota of intention to
ridicule the people of Bolgatanga or
northerners in general.
He was somewhat remorseful for using them,
but said it could have been any other tribe
without malice.
He also denied that the evergreen hit song
'Moses' was banned by government.
