Panshak Zamani (born 30 October 1986) is better known by his stage name Ice Prince, a Nigerian hip hop recording artist and actor. He rose to fame after releasing “Oleku” The song features vocals from Brymo. It was released by Chocolate City on June 8, 2010. It is the first single from his debut studio album Everybody Loves Ice Prince and one of Nigeria’s most remixed songs of all time.He won the 2009 Hennessy Artistry Club Tour. In 2013 Ice Prince released his second studio album titled Fire of Zamani. The album contained the singles “Aboki” “More”, “Gimme Dat” and “I Swear“. On 1 July 2015, Ice Prince was announced as the new Vice President of Chocolate City . Now guys lets throw it back to where it all began:
Ice Prince was born Panshak Henri Zamani in the city of Minna, Niger State, Nigeria. At age two, he moved with his family to the mining city of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. While residing in Jos, he attended St. Murumba College. He also attended the Science Tutorial College in Jos.
In 1999, he began writing Rap songs and started performing them at social events held at his school. It was not until 2001 that he began going to recording studios to record. In 2002, he got together with a couple of friends and formed a group called the “ECOMOG Squad”. They had few performances as a group and split a year later. In 2004, he connected with M.I, Jesse Jagz, Ruby, Lindsey, Eve, Taz, and together they became what is now known today as the “Loopy Crew” and in 2004, Ice Prince released his debut single “Extraordinary” with all this said guys we move to playing you the number four and three songs on the artist of the week for today.
No 4: JuJu – was nominated as Most Gifted Reggae Video of the Year at the channel O music video award
No 3: Aboki – The song is off his second studio album and is the third track off the album During the aforementioned interview, Ice Prince opened up about why he chose to name his debut album, Everybody Loves Ice Prince. He said “What made me give my album that name was when I lost my Mum, really. There was so much love, so much care from all around the world. People really showed me love and it was after that incident that I came back to record my album and I thought what better name to call my album than Everybody Loves Ice Prince because I was shown love.
In 2015, Ice Prince began making available singles from his third studio album. The eventual release of the album signified his first independent album outside Chocolate City record label. He revealed to Pulse he had Universal Studio in the US mix and master the album. The album was finally released on the 28th of October, 2016 and it was titled “Jos To The World” under his label “Super Cool Cats”. The album contained singles like “Me vs Me” and “Boss”. Ice prince also released another EP titled “Trash Can” in 2015 just before the release of his third album.
No 2: Boss – off his third studio album
Ice Prince has a son named Jamal with Bimbo Babatunde. In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune, the rapper said he dated Eva Alordiah when he first relocated to Lagos.
Sometime in 2016, ice prince left chocolate city after just been made the vice president of the label to the set up his own label. The news came as a shock to his fans and the whole industry.
Ice Prince’s reason for leaving was that his official contract with the label expired in 2014 but due to his personal relationship with the label owners, he decided not to make it public.
Bonus track: marry you – off his “Trash Can EP”
Awards and Nominations
He won best male hip hop artist at the ben tv awards in 2018, in 2014 he won best rap act of the year at the 2014 Nigeria entertainment awards, he was also nominated in 2014 as rap artist of the year but he didn’t win, in 2013 his song “V.I.P” was nominated for best hip hop video at the Nigeria music video award just to mention a few.
No 1: Oleku – During a visit to Tim Westwood‘s BBC Radio 1xtra show, Ice Prince said “Oleku” means ‘hard and strong’.In an interview with Factory 78 TV, Ice Prince was asked about the recording process of “Oleku”. His response was:
“First of all, what happened was, at the time Chocolate City was on my neck to submit my single because they’ve released M.I, they’ve released Jesse. What they were supposed to release next is Ice Prince. They were on my neck for my single and there was no single. So, I got a beat from my friend. His name is Sarz. He gave me a beat and the first thing that came to my head when I was writing was “She feeling me boy yeah, she feeling me boy”. That sounded good. I was writing it in the studio, just trying to write verses to that. Jesse came in and heard me singing that. Jesse started playing the chords to what I was singing and I like it. So we just put on the system, he recorded the whole instrument. Between God and men, Jesse made the whole beat under 30 minutes. He made it and stepped out of the studio. I wrote it there and thought I needed more melodies for soul. I started composing in my head…I wanted to put Yoruba words to that so I called Brymo to the studio, we sat down together, put our heads together and we wrote it. It came out the way it was. But I didn’t expect it to be this big, trust me…I thought that it was an okay song…It wasn’t even going to come out as my first single, but because the demand was too much, I needed to put it out real quick so we just tested it out on the internet. From the internet, it just went everywhere.
The song won the 2011 city people award in the category of “song of the year”, it also won best contemporary afro video at the nigeria music video award, the song also won song of the year and best rap single at the 2011 headies award.
