TINNY

Never mind small, these days big things come in 'Tinny' packages. In Ghana, the name Nii Addo Quaynor could so easily belong to your average Chale on the corner but just insert the two syllables 'Ti' and 'Nny' (emphasis on the double ‘n’) and carefully observe the reaction on the streets and alleys of Dansoman and other Accra suburbs. The gravitation there is instant! Tinny is a legend in these parts.


Born to a family of six children, Tinny is the baby of his house and rather appropriately, it was his mother who gave him his now famous stage name – Tinny. Young Tinny started flirting with music at an early age. 'I started from the primary school but I actually started working on my own songs when I was in Junior Secondary School'. While stroking his neat short dreads, he added 'When I was in JSS, we formed a group by name Nature and Agony and then, we were doing English and Twi songs . However after some time, my partner Agony left the group'. But that little setback didn't deter him. You see, for Tinny music has never been something as trivial as a hobby. Never mind childhood fantasies of wanting to be an astronaut or a fireman, Ghana's biggest Ga musical export had always wanted to be a 'Tinny' when he grew up. The transformation was made even smoother because, unlike most of his collegues in the arts, his was a career that got its parental blessings from the get-go.'My daddy released my first album 'Makola Kwakwe', so my family has always been in full support.'


First released in 2003 'Makola Kwakwe' was Tinny’s little way of saying - please allow me to introduce myself.  'When Makola Kwakwe first came out, i knew that song would become a hit in Ghana  because at that time there was nobody rapping in strictly Ga (Ga is a local Ghanaian language spoken in and around Accra)'. Even though Nigerians didn’t understand a damned thing he said, Makola Kwakwe, or the popular rat as the song title loosely translates in English became a pesky musical rodent that somehow found its way on the playlists of many DJs in and around Lagos. Fast forward to today and Tinny's career is now four albums long, numerous killer collaborations wide and more than a few tens of thousands of Cedis deep.


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