Anyone who is familiar with popular
musician, Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, fondly referred to as Ruggedman,
will know that he is not one to shy away from a fight. So, it did not
come as a shock to many when the rap artiste decided to clap back at his
colleague, Blackface, who granted an interview where he said that the
rapper had lost focus.
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.
Apparently, the comment did not go down
well with Ruggedman, who 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 a chat with Saturday Beats, 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.”

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