Claim that Kao Denero is the first Sierra Leonean artist, Anglophone rapper in the Mano River Union to hit 70,000 subscribers on YouTube is TRUE

By: Benedict AbuBakarr Conteh

A photo of Kao Denero.

 

Claim: 

A Facebook page, Hip Hop Sierra Leone, has claimed that Kao Denero is the first Sierra Leonean artist and Anglophone rapper in the Mano River Union to hit 70,000 YouTube subscribers.

Verdict: 

TRUE - Available data confirms that Kao Denero is the first Sierra Leonean artist and Anglophone rapper in the Mano River Union (MRU) to reach this milestone.

Full Text

On Monday, 12 May, 2025, the Facebook page Hip Hop Sierra Leone made a post claiming that Kao Denero has become the first Sierra Leonean artist and Anglophone rapper in the Mano River Union (MRU) to hit 70,000 subscribers.

Kao Denero (Amara Dennis Turay) is Sierra Leone’s most prominent rapper, dubbed the "King of Freetown." Beyond music, Kao was appointed to serve as Sierra Leone’s Special Envoy for Entertainment and Investment, a role he has held since 2021.

Kao’s appointment letter to serve as Special Envoy for Entertainment and Investment

This post surfaced online after Kao was crowned best African rapper at the Africa Golden Awards in Nairobi, Kenya. It appeared here, here, and here.

Poster showing Kao Denero won the Best Male Hip-Hop/Rap Artist 2025

The Facebook post has attracted 580 likes, 55 comments, and 17 shares on the social media platform.

Many congratulated Kao Denero, while others bashed him for securing 70,000 subscribers when other African artists boast millions of subscribers.

A Facebook comment in Krio by Pitter Moya says, “70k everybody dae celebrate as wuna say na africa best rapper, e still dae struggle to get million followers. Na million followers as Africa's best rapper wuna for dae celebrate.” Another Facebook user, Lahai Sam King, congratulated him in the comment secction thus: “This is for those who compared boys Scott to soldier auction speak louder than voice, congratulations to you and Sierra Leone.”

After a series of doubtful conversations both online and offline, our researcher decided to verify if truly Kao Denero is the first to receive such a milestone.

Verification

Our researcher first narrowed the search to Anglophone countries in West Africa, comprising The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria and parts of Cameroon. He then tailored the research to Anglophone countries in the Mano River Union (MRU), which includes Liberia and Sierra Leone to get a good result. Although Guinea and Côte D’Ivoire are part of the Mano River Union (MRU), they are not captured in this research because English is not their official language, but French.

He also used available data on the internet to ascertain this claim.

The tools He used are Socialblade and Viberate. These platforms show rankings by Country, Genre, subscriber count, views count and more.

Searches conducted for Sierra Leonean artists on YouTube with 10,000 subscribers and above show that Kao Denero is the most subscribed artist on YouTube in Sierra Leone as of May 2025, followed by Drizilik, Emmerson, King Boss La, and Famous.

YouTube statistics showing Sierra Leonean artists with 10,000 to 70,000 Subscribers as of May 2025.

I conducted another search for rappers in Anglophone countries, including Sierra Leone and Liberia, targeting rappers with 10,000 subscribers and above.

Again, searches show Kao Denero is still the most subscribed artist and rapper in the Anglophone Mano River Union.

Statistics showing anglophone rappers in the MRU with 10,000 to 70,000 subscribers as of May 2025. 

Individual searches on YouTube show that he is still the most subscribed artist in Sierra Leone and the first rapper in the Anglophone Mano River Union to reach 70,000 subscribers.

Whilst  JZyNO is the only artist in the Anglophone Mano River Union to have surpassed 70,000 subscribers, Kao Denero is the only artist in Sierra Leone and the Anglophone rapper in Mano River Union with the most subscribed YouTube channel, with 70,000 subscribers.

Conclusion:

Using available YouTube data, the claim that Kao Denero is the first Sierra Leonean artist and the first Anglophone rapper in the Mano River Union to unlock 70,000 YouTube subscribers is TRUE.