Do we like Sarkodie?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record, years of giving to kids' causes and no harmful words found, held back by how little he says on the issues that matter to us.
Sarkodie is the stage name of Michael Owusu Addo, one of Ghana's biggest rappers, and he has been at it for a long time. Back in a 2009 interview he was already saying “my talent comes from God”, and he said he tried to satisfy the majority of his listeners. That mix of faith and crowd-pleasing has stayed the brand.
The drama lately is a feud with Stonebwoy. Stonebwoy publicly described their phone conversations and suggested one of Sarkodie's posts was a subliminal jab at him. Sarkodie replied that he has never deliberately posted to target him, and said his first question on the call was “What is your problem?”. Where you land depends on whether you read the post as shade or as fans over-reading it.
Earlier in March 2026 he copped criticism from veteran broadcaster Kwame Adinkra over a viral clip of him with a cigar while promoting new songs. Adinkra said it didn't set the right example for young fans. Sarkodie replied on X that the advice was taken and there were no excuses. Owning it that fast is a point in his favour.
He is also in court, as the one doing the suing. In 2025 he took Ecobank Ghana to the High Court in Accra, alleging an advert used a lookalike of him without consent. The bank hasn't been found to have done anything, and the reports we read don't give an outcome. It reads as a brand dispute rather than a scandal.
On the harm check, we searched for anything he has said about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate and found nothing. We also didn't find him campaigning against anyone's rights, or making a run of work with people who do. That is a pass on what we could see, but silence is not the same as support. Ghana's debate on LGBTQ+ rights is intense, and we found no statement from him either way.
The real good stuff is in the kids' work. He launched the Sarkodie Foundation in 2013, and in 2014 it ran a Feed the Kids campaign in Tema. During the 2020 lockdowns it delivered goods to households, including elderly residents. In 2022 he paid hospital bills for a badly burned toddler and gave her family 13,000 cedis.