Dad was shot 7 times, it made me do secular music but my spirit was unsettled – Irene Logan

Ghanaian-based Liberian singer and winner of the maiden edition of ‘Stars of the future’, Irene Logan, has disclosed that she took a break from music because she felt like she was not walking in her purpose while doing secular music.

Narrating why she has been silent on the music scene on Restoration with Stacey on Sunday, 3 May 2020, the former member of ‘Irene and Jane’ explained that she grew up in a Christian home and had sung for God all her life until she won the ‘Stars of the Future’ competition sand, therefore, felt uneasy in her spirit when she began to do secular music.

She said: “When I won Stars of the Future, I had a serious mind battle – mental, spiritual emotional: Should I sing what I do, what I’m used to, gospel or secular? It was so difficult for me to make that decision that I had sleepless nights but also because I had been in the church for far so long, I wanted a break, I wanted to live, I wanted to explore; could I just be normal like everybody else?

It’s not a sin, can I do this? So, I decided I’m going to sing what I want to sing, I’m not going to do gospel.

“But my spirit was never rested with that decision. I used to have sleepless nights, what they call torments at night. What are you doing?

Feels dirty, like you are doing something that is not for you; like your spirit is rejecting something and I went through that for about six months.

While I was performing so many nights I didn’t sleep and those were my battles but also I did not want to be doing something that my heart was not in.”

She added: “So, the break was because I was never settled in my spirit I knew I was not walking in my purpose and when I say that I’m not saying that everybody singing secular music is going to hell or they’re all sinning, but we’re all different people and few people, some people have been called to specific things and until you find your way back to that thing, nothing will make sense to you and I know that was what the problem was.”

After losing her biological father, brother and grandfather to death, another tragedy hit Irene Logan when she moved from Liberia to Ghana with her mother – armed robbers shot her stepfather.

The unfortunate incident, she recalls, occurred after her mother got married to Charles Ebo Takyi in 1996. They [Irene and her mother] had left Liberia five years back on the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) flight following an unrest in Liberia.

Having lost three relatives in a year, they finally could afford a smile because the man [Ebo Takyi] availed himself and showed them immense love.

“He was a good man. She [my mum] made the right choice. She was not only thinking of herself; she had to be with a man who will be accommodating of her daughter.

He was perfect, God just sent him right on time for us,” Irene said on ‘Restoration with Stacy’.

The moment, according to her, did not last. Their happiness was truncated when armed robbers visited them one Sunday and shot her father seven times.

“Sometime between me finishing school, I worked a little bit at Citi FM. Disaster hit again at home. On Mothers’ Day, one Sunday, we were all sitting down as a family.

We had gone to buy pizza for my mum and we were watching a movie. He heard the dogs bark around 12 midnight. My dad run out to see what was happening. They were armed robbers,” she recalled.

According to Irene, her father decided to protect them. His quest to do so made the robbers pull the trigger, shooting him seven times.

She said: “Because he was the only man in the house, he’s so strong and stubborn. He was not gonna allow them to come into the house because we heard stories about them raping women… He tries to stop them; they surrounded him and shot him.”

“I was the only one who saw it because I was looking through the kitchen window. They shot him seven times. They were masked.

As he went down, what he kept saying to them was ‘I won’t die but each and every one of you will die’. They shot him and ran. When we opened the door, he was lying there in a pool of blood. My mum told me to help her and she said ‘God, not again.’

“They took him to 37 Military Hospital. That was another very difficult moment of our lives. He spent 6 months on his back. He had to learn to walk again, his leg broke.”

Irene, winner of Stars of the Future season 1 reality show held in 2006 said she joined the contest after the incident.

She mentioned that she was determined to make a mark “in such a way that would protect my family from any outside influence.”

“I was so angry and that anger sort of gave me some type of fire to do something for myself. So when I heard the advert for Stars of the Future, it was about two years after this had happened.”

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