These shots were taken in Nima, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Accra. Local musicians accepted to do an impromptu nziki (spelling?) performance for us… it was INCREDIBLE. We’ve got amazing footage, which we cannot upload just yet, but stay in touch, join our newsletter and get the updates…. peace chale!
We are in a car right now, stuck in Tema, right outside of Accra, in a pretty bad traffic jam. Good thing the tape player works, we’re listening to some gospel highlife, it makes the sun and gasoline fumes feel like a breeze… Well, almost anyway.
We’re headed to Lome to cover some of the Togolese 50th independence events, and to meet a few cats there, artists and radio guys. Togo is really not on the map at all, so we’re quite curious to find out what’s hiding there.
The road is only 3 hours from Accra to Lome, plus the past hour stuck in traffic in Tema. But hopefully we make it before dark, it would make it easier to walk across the border with the film equipment and other “obruni” (white man) apparati we’re carrying with us!!
Who’s “we” you may wonder… Ryan Lash, photographer and videographer, and myself, Benjamin Lebrave. We left Panji, Ananse and the rest of the crew in Accra. Ananse (Spider in twi) has been great, both helping us meet with artists, and laugh throughout the process. He’s a natural born comedian, we’ll post some videos of him as soon as we can.
Sorry for the lack of photos, sounds and videos: for the time being I’ve relied almost exclusively on my phone for email, which doesn’t allow me to post anything besides text. If any phone manufacturer wants to sponsor our next trip with a more advanced device, we’re down!
Music… Today we met with Pat Thomas, a legendary highlife musician, who shared his life story with us, from his early beginnings in Takoradi about 40 years ago (!) to the golden era of the late 70s, when highlife musicians often played several clubs during the same night! Highlife carries on today in Ghana, although it is quite discreet in comparison with hiplife. Highlife has basically been absorbed by the churches, the only entities able to fund live music performances. For better or for worse…
Panji of Pigen Music had some spare time this morning, so he shared some of his stories and thoughts about music, music in Ghana, where he fits in and where global fans and exposure fit in. An interesting point he made is that music made anywhere should appeal to the musicians immediate surrounding. By extension, he considers that taking an African artist and modifying his sound to appeal to a specifically western audience is doomed for failure. We couldn’t agree more!
Panji also told us an interesting anecdote explaining how he became involved with recording and production: playing the guitar along with a piano, he always had to be closer to the microphone, since the piano is louder. After experimenting with mic placement, and soon 2 track recording, he actually got pretty good at it. Fast forward 25 years (Panji started real young!), he’s still pretty good at it, and is one of the most forward thinking producers in Ghana.
Next was Dela of Hewale Sound, a great beo-traditional ensemble. After chatting with him about his past experiences sharing Ghanaian folklore all over the world, he invited us to a small concert right behind the National Theater. Balafon, djembe, cajon, calabash shaker, cowbell and flute… They got everybody dancing!! No photos to upload just yet: blackberry and wordpress still have a lot to learn from each other…
Last but not least we saw Appietus again today, and we discussed big plans together… We don’t want to jink anyx`thing, but keep his name in mind, it looks like he’ll be popping up here often.
More (including photos + videos) soon!..
We were lucky… LA to Accra via Amsterdam was relatively smooth… No one got stranded in post-volcano Europe, we narrowly escaped the air travel chaos and arrived safely in Ghana.
We are staying with Panji of Pidgen Music. Not a bad place to be: both Panji and Wanlov (the Kubolor!) have been welcoming despite their hectic schedule. They’ve got a movie coming up, Coz Ov Moni, which we hope – for your sake – gets released everywhere soon. The movie is funny as hell, although we probably missed some of the jokes in pidgen – still working on it!! Ghanaian premiere is at the National Theater in Accra on May 15.
The funny lookin’ cat in the picture is one of our new homies Ananse (Spider) aka Old Dad aka our GREAT friend nana’s COUSIN!!!!! The world is a crazy place: our very first day in Accra we stumble up;on Ananse at Panji’s house, who eventually tells us about his cousin Nana who lives in LA, more specifically in Venice Beach… and more specifically is THE firecracker party starter at our local LA gigs!!!
So we’re in good hands… Ananse is hilarious, a model and comedian, we’ll try to upload some videos of him dancing as soon as we can, they are well worth watching.
Back to music… we also went to Dansoman to meet up with Appietus, probably the most well knowned hiplife beat maker in town, it seems everybody’s worked with him: Samini, KK Fosu, Kofi B, Kwabena-Kwabena, Mframa, Tinny, Wutah… So Appietus played us his latest compilation, a sick SICK collection of Ghana’s finest hiplife singers. The early morning soundtrack as we write this post!
Appietus was pretty skeptical when we first met (how can a white man call a company Akwaaba?!?!), but after a few minutes of parlaying, he started to mellow out a bit. Not the first time we get this type of initial reaction: the history of white men abusing Africa and its culture is centuries long, so it’s not surprising that honesty and goodwill sometimes take a minute to sink in… Anyway the bottom line for Appietus, as for most musicians and producers here in Ghana, is MONI. So if we can help him make some without taking full advantage of him, why not… We’re meeting him again today to further discuss, and interview him.
More soon…
Pretty funny start to our adventure, below are the directions to the house where we’re staying in Accra:
“In west airport, ask for the north Dzorwulu (“djuwulu”) traffic light by the Fiesta Royale hotel. At that traffic light, there are women selling food, look for the place with the most people, where there are also taxis. There is a trotro station, tell the women you’re looking for “sexy eyes”, and tell her you’re looking for Kubolor, she’ll show you the way…”
Yes, Kubolor as in Kubolor. Not a bad dood to hang with!!!!
And we just learned last night that our flight via Amsterdam is actually HAPPENING, which is… exciting. Check back soon for some news from the ground!
We dig Dubian’s weekly radio show Dubearth, and sure enough our new Quebec City homie was down to compile some of the sounds from Jahman Eselem and Eden Roots Liberation‘s albums. Enjoy his tasteful set of roots reggae, perfect for today’s occasion… below are links to listen and download both albums. The right column of this blog has other links to iTunes and Amazon, and you can listen to more of Dubian’s mixes here.
In Dubian’s own words:
“I’ve been into dub and reggae for a number of years now but it wasn’t until about 4 years ago that I started to really make it my main style. It had always had its place in my music collection which is varied but I’d say that I developed a real passion for rootsy sounds about 7-8 years ago when I started getting my hands on everything that I could.
Musical styles which have really inspired me include delta blues, bebop, krautrock, jungle, dubstep and funk carioca to name some of the ones that keep popping back up in my sets. More than anyone else I think King Tubby and Scientist have the biggest influence in my current sound.
This mix came together very fast, I felt very inspired making it. I spent a whole day just going trough my collection trying to find the right tracks. When you have the right tracks everything just comes together and selection is often the most neglected part of the job. Basically within a few days of organizing the project through twitter and skype with Benjamin from Akwaaba we had a finished product.
I love the fact Jahman Eselem decided to cut versions for each track on his album. Big ups to keeping tradition alive! And what massive dubs they are. As for Eden Roots Liberation they have a great sense of groove and hook and write some damn catchy riddims. Great Players too a very tight band. Both were a lot of fun for me to include in this mix and I just hope I managed to bring out the best in their irie sounds.”
We think he did manage… do you think do?!?!
