TERO MANDEM Subtitle: From Street Boss to Saved Soul

I won’t sugarcoat it — I wasn’t raised with softness. I came up hard, in the raw corners of Dansoman, where people don’t survive on dreams but on instinct. The kind of place where even the wind whispers warnings, and every corner holds a story soaked in smoke and regret.

My name is Tero Mandem. That’s not the name my mother gave me, but it’s the one the streets gave me — and the name I earned through pain, blood, and voice.

I was raised behind a kiosk. Not beside — behind. My mother had managed to turn a space the size of a goat pen into a home. She sold secondhand underwear in the Lapaz market, hanging bras and boxers from wooden poles like victory flags. She worked from sunrise to streetlight, just to make sure I ate once a day.

My father? The streets have never told me who he was. All I know is, my mother says it was a rainy Friday night, she trusted the wrong voice, and nine months later, I arrived.

We weren’t poor. We were below poor. If poor people had neighbors, we were downstairs.

But in the midst of all that, I found brothers. Not by blood — by bond. Boys who, like me, were shaped by the streets.

There was Problem — short-fused, fearless, and faster with his fists than his thoughts. Then O Don, calm and quiet, always observing before moving. O Von, lyrical and wild, a street prophet with a Bible in one hand and blunt in the other. Lovelone, charming but cracked from heartbreak. And Biggie — my right hand. Tall, broad, loud, and loyal. If I was the fire, Biggie was the fuel.

We were known in Dansoman. You could ask any shopkeeper from Sahara to Russia, and they’d tell you — “If Mandem boys dey pass, you no for talk rough.” We moved as one. Wore black most days, not for fashion — for identity.

The first time I tasted real street violence, I was thirteen.

It was over a space. My mother had hung some of her bras on a wooden beam close to the roadside, and this older guy, Sleekbwoy, tried to shove her stuff off, saying it was blocking the way.

I stood there, skinny and barefoot, shaking with heat.

“Touch that bra,” I warned, “and I go make you bleed.”

He laughed. Loud. Mocking.

So I hit him. Fist to face. The sound was louder than I expected. Blood spilled onto his white shirt.

That was the day I got respect. Not love — but respect. The streets don’t deal in love. They recognize boldness, madness, and violence. I got slapped by my mother when she found out, but that day, I walked taller.

Later that night, I sat under the mango tree by Mamprobi Road, alone, thinking. Biggie came and sat next to me, lit a stick, and passed me one.

“I don’t smoke,” I told him.

He nodded. “Good. Use your head. Not smoke. You get fire inside you, Tero. But you need a voice.”

“A voice?” I asked.

He pointed his finger like a microphone. “Music. That’s your weapon. The streets go listen if you make them feel you.”

That was the moment something clicked.

We didn’t have a studio, just a Nokia phone. I started recording verses using voice note. O Don mixed it with some Android app. The first song we made was called Born for War. The beat was shaky. The vocals were raw. But the truth inside? That one was undiluted.

We shared the audio via Xender and W******p groups. Within two days, boys from Mallam to Odorkor were singing the chorus like it was gospel.

People started to notice. But in the midst of all the hype, we made a bold move.

We decided to take the song to Jay Loopz, a known underground producer based in Mataheko. We heard he had worked with a few names that had popped. It felt like the next logical step.

We borrowed coins, squeezed into a dusty trotro, and pulled up at his studio — a small compound behind a betting shop. No signboard. Just music leaking from the walls.

A slim guy opened the door and stared at us like we were lost.

“We want to see Loopz,” Biggie said. “We’ve got something.”

He didn’t reply. Just walked in.

A few minutes later, Jay Loopz stepped out. He had a beard so perfect it looked drawn on, sunglasses at sunset, and a chain that caught the light like attention.

“You guys are artists?” he asked, arms folded.

Biggie handed him our flash drive.

He didn’t take it.

“I don’t work with gangs,” he said. “I do music, not noise.”

Silence.

O Don stepped forward, calm as always. “Just listen to it once.”

Loopz shook his head. “Go polish your craft. This isn’t ghetto radio.”

Then he walked away.

We stood there — humiliated, quiet, and boiling inside.

That moment was a turning point.

That rejection didn’t crush us — it redefined us. We went back to Askarigota, a rough patch of Dansoman that was as unforgiving as it was inspiring. It was filled with broken dreams and boys trying not to drown.

That night, we were smoking and thinking. We played Born for War again. Singing along. Not rehearsing — feeling it.

Then a boy walked by. Dirty shirt, sunken eyes, sharp tongue. He paused, turned back, and said:

“Chale… this voice. You go blow. One day you go shine pass spotlight.”

That hit different.

We didn’t need Jay Loopz. We needed faith. In ourselves.

We found a small room — someone’s old charging joint — and turned it into our studio. No soundproofing. No money. No support. Just passion. We hung blankets on the wall, used socks as pop filters, and borrowed a laptop.

We recorded five tracks in two weeks:

Police Is Coming

Gone to War

Askarigota

Teddy Fie

Mandem Forever

Each one told a piece of our lives. Real stories. Real scars.

Problem, surprisingly, became our strongest vocalist. His voice was deep and full of pain — pain you couldn’t fake. O Don was our mixer, O Von our hook machine, and I was the fire in the booth.

Then came the unexpected — a message from Hajia Saskey, O Don’s older sister.

She was nothing like us. Sophisticated. Influential. Always dressed in elegance. But she loved our sound.

One night, she texted:

“Your voice is special. Stop wasting time. The world is waiting.”

Soon after, a community youth show was organized at the Dansoman Roundabout. Hajia pulled strings to get us a slot.

But I didn’t want to go.

“I’m not a clown,” I said. “I won’t perform for people who wouldn’t give me a minute last month.”

When Hajia heard that, she said, “If Tero won’t go, then none of you will.”

The room went silent. I looked at the boys.

Problem said, “If you’re not stepping, I’m staying.”

O Von added, “We started together. We rise together.”

I looked down. Felt the weight of loyalty.

“Fine,” I said. “We’ll go. Let’s show them who we really are.”

Biggie slapped his fist into his palm.

“Then let’s burn the stage.”