The young and vibrant Nigerian Reggae/Dancehall musician Patoranking who also doubles up as a songwriter was born Patrick Nnaemeka Okorie on 27th May,1990 into the Okorie family as the first of other 3 siblings. The family used to reside at IJegun Egba Satellite town, until they further relocated to Ebuta Metta, a town in Lagos named “Ghetto” due to its poor population. He attended Citizen Comprehensive College and University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central region of Ghana where he had to drop out due to some challenges. Despite Patoranking been born with the passion for music, he’s been blessed with a football talent as well. He used to play football in the Ghetto where he’s from with the nick name Patoricco. He was at that time one of best from his area. He also used to mime to songs from his favourite musicians like Bob Marley, Chakka Demus, Fela Kuti and others same time doing a line or two from his own lyrics he started writing by then. It was that time he got the name “Ranking” which means Highly Respected from a Jamaican soul who fell in love with his passion for music and the talent in a whole, thus the name Patoranking. Even before his days at the University of Cape Coast, he’s been living in Ghana where his music career officially started. It was those times he used to walk from Osu, a suburb in Accra to the studios of the popular Ghanaian Music Talent Hunt show hosted by PY Addo Boateng “Bless The Mic” together with his friend Stonebwoy – the reigning Ghanaian artiste of the year. Patoranking started music as a street act. It was during that time he released his debut single which is reggae dubbed “So Nice” produced by VDK in 2009 in Accra, Ghana. He later moved back to Nigeria to join his family and also to make the music career work as his so desired. As passionate as he was about his music career, he never slept on it as he got back to Nigeria. He started by promoting the debut single and started jumping on under collaborations one after the other. He did collaborations with artistes like XProject, Konga, Slam and Reggie Rockstone – the grandpapa of Ghanaian Hiplife. Things started happening fast just as he prayed for when he quickly signed a record deal with K-Solo’s Igberaga Records in 2010. He released a single titled “Up in D Club” under the record label. Later Patoranking became a protégé of “Dem Mama Records” owned by Timaya after featuring Timaya on “Alubarika” – the first official single after “So Nice” in 2013. In February 2014, he signed a record deal with Foston Musik where he released his hit single “Girlie O” and featured Tiwa Savage on the remix. It happened like magic as he became a household name in the Nigerian music industry with “Girlie O” topping chats within and beyond the boundaries of Nigeria. He started getting nomination for the top Nigerian music awards and won the Next Rated Act in 2014 Nigerian Entertainment Award (NEA) in a category that comprises of the Johnny hit crooner Yemi Alade and others. Same year, he earned a City People Entertainment Award for the Reggae/Dancehall Act of the year. He got a Chanel O nomination that same year in the Best Reggae/Dancehall category where he lost to Buffalo Solja. He was also a performing act at the awards that year.
In March 2015 he was voted as the MTV Artiste of the Month. Thereafter he got a nomination for the Ghana Music Awards 2015 in the International Act Category with his fellow compatriots Tiwa Savage, The Mavins, Yemi Alade and others where he won it. He later dropped a basement titled “Daniella Whine” together with a classy video which is currently number one on MTV-Base official music video countdown. The video is making waves all around the globe. Due to his hard work and determination, He’s now a signee of “VP Records” that house the likes of Sean Paul, Beenie Man, Busy Signal, Gyptian, Wayne Wonder, Elephant Man and many others.A coordinate to statistics, Patoranking in recent time is the most featured act from his country in the year 2014/2015 under review. He was featured on MI Abaga’s Chairman album on a track “Enemies”, he nailed it together with the beautiful Seyi Shay and Shaydee on “Murda”, not forgetting his award winning collaboration “Emergency” with Runtown and Wizzypro. He also jumped on collaborations outside Nigeria which includes a feature with Stonebwoy, Chameleon and others. He’s currently working on his debut studio album titled “God Over Everything (GOE)” which is set to be released later this year. As part of his achievements, he got signed by Skyy Vodka as a brand ambassador. Patoranking is one of the young acts with the most inspiring story as he rose from nothing to something – from grass to grace – from a rat potion seller on the streets of Lagos a to a worldwide celebrated musician.
Story: Obed Kaze (ObEe)
