Victor Asare is a Ghanaian based in China. A man of many trades, Asare is a certified medical doctor, as well as, musician and model in the Asian country.
Asare left Ghana in 2013 to study medicine at the Shenyang Medical College in China. During his six-year MBBS course, Asare decided to pursue his passions – music and modeling – alongside his studies, Ghanaian portal abcnewsgh reports.
Known in the music fraternity as Bill Legend, Asare released his first song titled Asante Ni’ in 2014 followed by ‘99, Mamacita, Hossana, Stronger and Taste’.
“I have passion for medicine. So, I decided to go to China to study. Music was my hidden talent. I was trying to hide it but inasmuch as I do, my feel for music comes out. When I came here (China), I started singing. Back home, I used to write songs and helped people make beats but I wasn’t into singing,” Asare said.
Asare’s first performance as a musician in China was thanks to his friend. Litany of career advice followed and without hesitation, Asare ventured into music. “I then came out with my first song; Asante Ni,” he said.
In 2017, Asare’s ‘Asante Ni’ track was adjudged the Best Song of the Year at a Chinese music award festival.
Apart from being a doctor and a musician, Asare also makes money modeling. “If you know how to manage your time, you can do it. It’s just easy like that when you know that from here, I’m going here and I’m doing this,” he said.
The Ghanaian is not the only African taking Asia’s entertainment industry by storm with his talent. Nigerian-American Ike Nwala is making the name for himself in the Japanese comedy industry. The 33-year-old, all-rounder, has become an exceptional success in the Asian country believed to be one of the most homogenous nations in the world.
Just about every day on TV, the Nigerian-American has broken the race ceiling in Japan, reaching an outré celebrity status.
Nwala has always wanted to pursue a career in computer science. He taught himself programming while in elementary school and continued taking lessons in college.
But when he stumbled upon a skit by Junji Takada in Japanese video rental, Nwala’s suppressed desire to be a comedian awoken from wherever it was.
He got immediately hooked and fixated.
“I went from saying ‘Wow, this is funny’ to ‘Wow, I want to do this,’” Nwala said in the 2017 chat with Vice. But first, he had to get to Japan. So, he secured a job at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, working as a computer engineer.
“And the whole time I was watching comedy DVDs nonstop, teaching myself Japanese, and working on my material,” he said.
Nwala grabbed a job with a comedy troupe as its non-Japanese member while at Goldman Sachs. And an appearance on a popular TV show mimicking the announcer at the Tokyo Disney Sea resort launched his career. A video clip went viral, and before long he was answering calls from shows that wanted him as a guest.