E.L's 10 Rap Commandments came out nine months before his VGMA Artiste of the Year win

In August 2015, E.L put out "10 Rap Commandments", a song that lays out ten rules for making it in Ghana's music industry. Nine months later, he was named Artiste of the Year at the 2016 Ghana Music Awards (VGMA).

The song is on BAR 2, his mixtape released on 21 August 2015 by BBnZ. GhanaWeb listed it among the BAR 2 singles already out before the mixtape landed.

A flip of Biggie

The title borrows from "Ten Crack Commandments", the 1997 song by Biggie on Life After Death, produced by DJ Premier. Biggie's list was about the streets. E.L's ten rules are about the business.

One small moment shows how the song was made. On rule seven he starts to say composition, then corrects himself to competition.

Nine months later

The 2016 VGMAs were held on 7 May 2016 at the AICC. E.L was up for Artiste of the Year against Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, VVIP, Bisa Kdei and SP Kofi Sarpong. He won it, along with four more awards: Afropop Song of the Year for "Minaa Bo Po", Hiplife/Hip Hop Artiste of the Year, Producer of the Year and Music Video of the Year for "Shelele". Rapper of the Year that night went to Sarkodie.

The breakdown points out that a rapper took the night's biggest prize with an Afropop song.

Back with D-Black

MyJoyOnline described a short break for E.L after "Ayele" in 2022. He has now returned with D-Black. The two first worked together on D-Black's "Change Your Life", whose official video went up on 22 December 2012.

Their joint EP, Dancing Machine, was announced on 4 September 2026. It has five tracks: Cool It Down, Customer, Jo Waa, Bowlege and Langalanga. The lead single, "Customer", came out with a video on 18 September. E.L produced it, and Nii Sowah directed the video for Black Avenue Muzik and Skillions Global. D-Black posted that the EP was out on 1 October, and on 3 October he asked fans on X if they were ready for a D-Black and E.L concert.

E.L is on X as @ELgh_ and D-Black as @DBLACKGH.