The music video for”Ayesama” takes us to Ebo Taylor’s homeland of Saltpond, Ghana. Ghanaians, young and old, cooking, dancing, and going about their daily business give a comforting feel of Taylor’s town. And is the perfect visual to the afrobeat and highlife treasure that is Appia Kwa Bridge, which is out now!
“I wanted to go back to a highlife feeling with this album,” says Ebo Taylor who does just that, as evident by the classic single, “Yaa Amponsah”. Taylor, the veteran musician who has been making music for over 5 decades, shares a real treasure with this single. A staple recording for highlife artists dating back to the 1920s, the song “Yaa Amponsah” is about a Cape Coastal man so smitten by a woman’s beauty that he asks her to marry him, and divorce her husband. Similar traditional Fante songs, chants, and children’s rhymes contribute to Taylor’s personal journey in music that he wishes to keep alive. Stream “Yaa Amponsah” below!
Legendary Ghanaian highlife and afrobeat composer Ebo Taylor dishes on his upcoming album Appia Kwa Bridge in this extended video interview. Recorded with the Berlin-based Afrobeat Academy, the 74 year-old guitarist’s new LP — his “most personal to date” — will feature Fante anthems (“Ayesama” and “Nsu Na Kwan”), a remake of a ’20s highlife classic (“Yaa Amponsah”), and a poignant acoustic tribute to Taylor’s late wife (“Barrima”). Watch Ebo Taylor divulge on his inspirations and showcases his highlife guitar in the video above. Stream a few cuts off Appia Kwa Bridge below, out April 16 on Strut.
In honor of the West African nation’s Independence Day, we get this Ghana remake of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys‘ big apple anthem. The track comes from London/Accra spoken word heavyweight Tuggstar aka The Poetman featuring Abena Malika, whose pipes recreate Alicia’s chorus incredibly faithfully. Big up Nkrumah, put the black star in the air, chale! Download “Ghanaian State of Mind” for free for the next 48 hours, you can find the track on Tuggstar’s upcoming Family Ties LP.
Last year, Ghana’s most unique mathafuckas FOKN Bois managed to offend an entire nation with their tongue-in-cheek jab “Thank God We’re Not A Nigerians.” They’ve since penned the world’s first pidgen musical Coz Ov Moni and shot a video for one of our hands-down favorite tracks “Brkn Lngwjz.”
Well, M3nsa and Wanlov are at it again with new album FOKN Wit Ewe. This time no one’s spared — track titles like “Strong Homosexual Guys,” “Laffin At Cripples,”Want To Be White,” and “Sexin Islamic Girls” give you a clue. FOKN Wit Ewe is up for FREE DOWNLOAD this week only. Stream and grab it below.
Late last year reports of Ghana’s Azonto craze began popping up all over. Articles were drafted, hiplife rappers embraced it, high schoolers threw down the dance moves (video above), even Amber Rose tested it out.
Azonto’s origins are uncertain, claims are the dance was birthed in Accra’s Bukom under the name “Apaa” (which means work) — hence its movements would mimic everyday tasks like driving, washing, ironing, etc.
The dance rose to global consciousness when Ghanaian footballer Asamoah Gyan used it as a celebration after his 2010 Africa Cup of Nations final-qualifying goal against Nigeria (above), as well as in a number of English Premiere League matches with Sunderland. Gyan doubles as a rapper in a couple of hiplife artist Castro‘s music videos.
Azonto has since morphed into a cultural phenomenon. An article in This Is Africa traced the etymology of the word, delivering a succinct re-cap of the dance music’s rise:
Starting off as a slang to describe a “loose”, cheap or ghetto person, Azonto soon became a popular word when rappers like Sarkodie started using it in their songs. Azonto then became a genre of music based on the rhythm that was used by these popular musicians. People needed a way to dance to dance to the “new” rhythm, so they started to borrow from Asamoah Gyan’s hugely popular moves, and from there the Azonto dance was birthed. (TIA)
Azonto’s banner anthem so far has been 2010 Ghanaian rapper of the year Sarkodie‘s infectious “U Go Kill Me.” Watch the track’s music video above, hear his companion E.L.‘s brand new joint “Obuu Mo” below and try an’ tell us these beats don’t grab you!
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We got stressed out just reading the headline on this latest bit of news. The cast of The Real Housewives of Atlanta will visit South Africa. We don’t watch The Real Housewives (or at least wouldn’t admit to it) but the Atlanta INTown paper reports that in last night’s episode: ”Phaedra called the Vice-President of Ghana to talk about her visit. Problem is: Ghana is nowhere near South Africa, so we’re not sure what the point was. Also unfortunate for Phaedra, her mobile phone was nowhere near a cell tower, introducing His Excellency to the American tradition of dropping your call in mid-sentence and ending your chat.”
We live everyday with the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr‘s bravery and ideology, but today in the United States we observe the Martin Luther King Day holiday to honor his birthday. King saw how struggles across Africa and Asia during the turbulent 50s and 60s were connected with his own in the United States. The photo above is of King and his wife Coretta Scott King at the independence celebration in Ghana in March 1957. Here is King speaking of that trip and the passing of the “old order” at Western Michigan University on December 18, 1963:
I can remember when Mrs. King and I first journeyed to Africa to attend the independence celebration of the new nation of Ghana. We were very happy about the fact there were now eight independent countries in Africa. But since that night in March, 1957, some twenty-seven new independent nations have come into being in Africa. This reveals to us that the old order of colonialism is passing away, and the new order of freedom and human dignity is coming into being.
But not only have we seen the old order in its international dimensions, we have seen it in our own nation in the form of slavery and racial segregation. We all know the long history of the old order in America. It had its beginning in 1619 when the first slaves landed on the shores of this nation. They were brought here from the soils of Africa. Unlike the Pilgrim fathers who landed at Plymouth a year later, they were brought here against their wills.
Ghanaian pidgin rapper Kay-Ara honed his skills with influences from hiplife pioneer Reggie Rockstone as well as across the ocean icons Tupac and Biggie. You might remember “Me Dough” — his stomper track featuring Yaa Pono and Lil Shaker we featured a minute ago. In The Reality Show mixtape, Kay spits about “the jigsaw puzzle of his life” tackling both light and heavy subjects of love, karma, and the mental weight surrounding a lover’s abortion. He also rhymes over past and current joints from the likes of Drake, Jeezy and Yeezy. Stream some samples and grab the entire mixtape for free below, featuring apperances by Twi Teacher and Jae Ghost.
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Stream: Kay-Ara “Junior’s Lullaby”
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Stream: Kay-Ara “Karma (Out To Get Me)”
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Stream: Kay-Ara “Headlines”
Film: Frances Bodomo’s Boneshaker
If this 39-second teaser is even the slightest depiction of what it means to be an African away from home, we’re thoroughly intrigued. The idea that most Africans are positively homeless and nomadic is visually constructed in the film Boneshaker by Ghanaian filmmaker Nuotama Frances Bodomo, who incorporates experiences from her nomadic life crossing 4 continents. Set on a trip to Louisiana in order to release the spirits harming their daughter, Blessing, Boneshaker is about a Ghanaian family coping with making a life in America while being haunted by the missing traditions of home. Having a spiritual connection to Ghana, yet having been influenced by her assimilative experiences in Norway, America, & Japan, Bodomo’s film journey reflects the woman she is becoming and the imagination that has nurtured her sense of home, regardless of where her feet touch the ground. Check out the promo clip for Boneshaker below. And visit the website where you can donate to make sure that this short film sees the light of day!
(H/T AfriPOP)