Onovwerosuoke was born in
Secondi-Takoradi, near the Atlantic Coast in Ghana, West Africa. His early childhood and education through college years were spent in both Ghana and Nigeria. In 1990, he attended
Principia College,
Elsah, Illinois, on a full scholarship, and while there studied
music theory and 20th Century composition techniques under Jim Dowcett, as well as Engineering Science and Computer programming with David Cornell and Tom Fuller. Although Onovwerosuoke has had a wide-ranging training that spans composition, electrical and electronic engineering, information technology, management and musicology, he is known to attribute his interest in music to his childhood as boy-soprano and to his high-school music teacher, Sam Anyanele, who instilled him a deep love of indigenous
African music. His tutelage under Dowcett at Principia was said to unleash a creative individualism that eventually evolved into a career as a composer with works that bear influences from Africa,
the Caribbean and the
American Deep South. == Career ==