The Ghanaian star shares the new track and music video for "Borjor" on his birthday.
Shatta Wale is celebrating his birthday by dropping a new track that's sure to get you in party mode.
"Borjor" is an addictive new song built on a mid-tempo afro-fusion beat work and led by the Ghanaian dancehall heavyweight's vocals about the object of his desire.
The accompanying music video, directed by PKMI, follows Shatta Wale and his friends to a day of swimming and messing around in a pool and mansion.
The artist's latest single references some of his personal heroes including Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Tupac Shakur and more.
British-Ugandan soul singer Michael Kiwanuka drops another single ahead of the release of his forthcoming album, KIWANUKA.
In "Hero" the singer pays homage to the Black Power and Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and 70s. The music video, directed by CC Wade references several Black leaders and some of the artist's personal heroes including Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr., Sam Cooke, Tupac Shakur, Marvin Gaye and more. It also depicts the FBI's often illegal efforts to stop Black movements and other anti-establishment groups through its Counterintelligence Program, as noted in Rolling Stone.
We premiere the new visual shot in Ghana's Cape Coast and Tema.
Ivy Sole has been capturing a lot of people's ears for her alluring blend of hazy R&B vocals, rhymes and influences from her past as a spoken word poet. That's all clear in the Philadelphia-based artist's 13-song debut album,Overgrown.
"Taken," one of the highlights form that full-length, sees the rapper-singer connecting with Ghana's B4Bonahover an airy afro-fusion concoction as they lament a desire over someone who's already taken. The track was produced by Sole's manager Ethan Boye-Doe, who's family has roots in Ghana.
Today we're premiering the new music video for "Taken" which follows Sole and B4Bonah to Ghana's Cape Coast and Tema.
Ivy Sole in "Taken." Image courtesy of the artist.
"I wanted to visit West Africa as a pilgrimage of sorts," Ivy Sole tells OkayAfrica in an e-mail. "I think many Black Americans and Black Caribbean folks have a yearning to go to where our families started, but we don't have a specific place to return to because that history was stolen."
With the video, "Taken," takes on two meanings: the original romantic one and a deeper connection to the enslaved Africans taken across the Atlantic from ports like Cape Coast.
"I consider myself blessed to have loved ones who have ties and are willing to share their homes with me; my manager (who produced the beat and the video) made it a priority to help me get to Ghana, collaborate with Bonah and accomplish the goal of creating more music and this video while we were there," she adds.
"B4Bonah is one of my favorite Afrobeat artists and being able to shoot this video in Tema and Cape Coast made the trip extra special. It was heavy to be standing in a place where such terror took place, but I think my ancestors would be proud of my path back and my path forward."
Watch our premiere of "Taken" below.
Ivy Sole - Taken ft B4Bonah (Official Video)
youtu.be
Ivy Sole in "Taken." Image courtesy of the artist.
