Serial entrepreneur Afua Asantewaa O. Aduonum has reminisced when she auditioned for Mentor, TV3’s reality show for music performers.

“I sang a song by Becca and Okraku Mantey told me to go audition for a beauty pageant [rather],” she explained to Nana Romeo on Accra 100.5 FM’s Ayekoo Ayekoo.

Asantewaa indicated the comment from the legendary record and executive producer Mark Okraku Mantey, “really hurt me but I took it in good faith, took part in a beauty pageant and rose to the second position”.

She noted incidentally, “When I was doing the sing-a-thon, he was also a deputy tourism minister.

“When he was a judge for Mentor, I was [first] runner-up Miss Tourism Ghana. So when he came into my box sing-a-thon, I reminded him he asked me to go try a beauty pageant instead of singing, and that I was now singing and he had come to pay a courtesy call on me. That’s how life is, it goes round and round.”

She was emphasising her passion for music, despite criticism from the public concerning her vocal performance during her famed 2023 and 2024 Guinness World Record (GWR) singing marathon (sing-a-thon) attempts.

“So I’ve not given up on music, if you write the song for me, I will sing it,” she concluded.

After her 2023 Akwaaba Village, Airport, sing-a-thon which drew a mammoth crowd, Asantewaa was appointed a tourism ambassador by the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) led by former CEO Akwasi Agyemang.