Hammer of The Last Two

He is the third child of Jones A. Osei and Marian Osei, Hammer was born Edward Nana Poku Osei on 27 March 1976.

His father was a banker and his mother was in the fishing industry.

They both had six children consisting of three boys and three girls, in order, Albert Osei, Angela Osei, Edward Osei, Elizane Osei, Karen Osei and Jones Osei jnr.

He is also a descendant of the late Otumfour Opoku Ware II, one time King of the Asanti Region.

Edward Nana Poku Osei known by the showbiz name Hammer of The Last Two (born March 27, 1977) is a Ghanaian record producer.

He is the founder and CEO of The Last Two Music Group and known for growing Ghanaian Hip Hop or Hiplife artists, including Obrafour, Tinny, Kwaw Kese, Sarkodie, Ayigbe Edem, among others.

He is sometimes credited as one of the people in the popularization of Hiplife or Hip Hop made in Ghana.

The family lived in North Kaneshie and later moved to East Legon, a wealthy neighborhood in the capital in the late 1980s and presently as well.

Hammer attended Yellow Duckling nursery school, St Theresa's School, Achimota Primary School and finally the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School, Legon.

However, his passion for music became a distraction from active academics and so he could not further his education to the university level.

Occasionally in his adolescent, the family lived in the United Kingdom and he also lived in the United States during his late teens.

Although his father was heartbroken as Hammer's grades fell, the family realized he was a born musician and eventually supported him.

Hammer was known to drum on any surface available to him anywhere he found himself and was also known to patrol his neighborhood with a boom box sound system while playing loud music with friends.

Growing up on his father's musical collection (such as Bonny M, the Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Pavarotti, Bonnie Tyler and several television and movie theme instrumentals such as James Bond, Dynasty, Neighbours, Dallas, etc.), Hammer digested works from these great icons as early as age seven and this gave him an unusual perspective over his peers.

This equipped him with skills that would eventually shape up his musical career.

After the hip-hop revolution, Hammer then became a fan of Special Ed, A Tribe called Quest, EPMD, De La Soul, Craig Mack, Guru, Rakim, Das Efx, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, etc. But his real inspiration came from Osibisa, Quincy Jones and Bob Marley.

Hammer is known to be a very reserved person and avoids nightclubs, parties and other social gatherings.

The name "Hammer" initially came from a mock performance of MC Hammer’s "Here comes the Hammer" back in school as a fresher but now the Hammer name is related to the raging heavy drums associated with his music production.

Hammer lives a simple life far from the celebrated person he is.

Fans have credited him for being very down-to-earth.

In 1997, as the young Hammer and Way Deep started their music production career, a friend (Edward Adu Mensah) introduced them to Obrafour, a potential rapper with unusual singing abilities and after vigorous grooming from Hammer, his debut album produced by Hammer and Way Deep was released on the Home Base Record label owned by Daniel "Masoul" Adjei and was later managed by Noise Management, owned by Abraham Ohene-Djan in August 1999.

After Obrafour's album, a disagreement between Way Deep and Hammer split the two producers but they have since remained friends outside their production differences and still keep in constant touch.

Way Deep however has since evolved into a singer and plays several more live instruments such as saxophone, guitar, etc. Obrafour has remained a multi award winner to date at the Ghana Music Awards and other parts of Africa.

Tinny was also a full beneficiary of Hammer's grooming and entire production which earned him a classic for a debut album.

In order to reduce the risk of the release of Tinny who was emerging with the Ga language, very unpopular then in the music industry, Hammer decided to feature him on Obrafour's third album hit single "Oye ohene" remix, which shot Tinny up to stardom even before his debut was released.

There was also a dispute between Hammer and Tinny during the recording of his maiden album called Makola Kwakwe.

Apparently, Tinny was caught up in the Twi revolution and despite being a Ga, he wanted to force himself to rap in Twi because of a wider market.

Hammer however believed Tinny would popularize the Ga language in the industry and would not allow him to rap in Twi as he believed Tinny would be ousted by the Twi-speaking rappers.

The issue was settled finally as Tinny’s family agreed that the Ga language should dominate the album with snippets of Twi and the result was a pride for the Ga people and a number one spot for Tinny.

He went on to win several awards at the Ghana Music Awards in subsequent years and other awards in parts of Africa.

This artist, Ayigbe Edem, was introduced to Hammer two years earlier by Jay Foley, an advertising agency owner who used to be a production student of Hammer back in 2002.

Edem's potential was obvious from the word go and Hammer started grooming him immediately.

The result was the landmark album titled ‘The Volta Regime’ which immediately put the Volta Region on the Ghanaian hip hop musical map.

In 2004, Hammer took up yet another challenge with an artist called Kwaw Kese, an indigene of the ‘Fante’ language who hailed from Agona Swedru in the Central Region.

Kwaw Kese came to the capital purposely to look for Hammer through one of Hammer's artistes “Dogo”and upon his first audition, Hammer confirmed his potential and started grooming him.

Within three months of training, Hammer released a single, ‘oye nonsense’ from him which immediately made him eligible for concerts and appearances.

Demand for this artist was so high that Hammer had to release the second single ‘kwakwa” which certified Kwaw Kese as the best ‘Fante’ rapper Ghana had ever seen.

In 2005, Hammer got married and had his first child.

His debut album however was delayed until the following year and in the 2007/2008 Ghana Music Awards, Kwaw Kese went on to win about seven awards.

He eventually took a break from production for more than two years until the middle of 2007 when he took up the project of yet another artist from another part of the country.