Another azonto scorcher… coming straight out of Dansoman aka DC, the neighborhood of Accra which practically caused Akwaaba Music’s relocation to Ghana. Dansoman is one of the more diverse, happening parts of Accra. It’s so huge, and in many ways so self contained, that it feels like it’s a city of its own.
Like any happening city, Dansoman has a lively music scene, it’s home to many of Ghana’s top artists, as well as a bustling underground scene, out of which Blaka is emerging.
Tozo is a term coined by Blaka to designate life, much like in the French expression “c’est la vie”, “it’s life”. Blaka conveys more meaning into this song than the catchy azonto beat might have you think. Concerned with helping Dansoman’s youth rise to the top, Blaka releases this first single as both a dance anthem and a positive call for action among fellow underground artists.
Edem, formerly known as Ayigbe Edem, has become the cultural and social ambassador for Ghana’s Volta region, home to the Ewe people. This status makes him an unavoidable public figure all across Ghana, where he has come to embody conscious, yet popular hip hop.
The Volta’s rap kingpin is moving on up however, as this album demonstrates. His recent single Over Again was a massive single all over Ghana, and this second opus is clearly geared at a much broader audience than his fellow Ewe people:
On Mass Production Edem displays his versatility, rapping and toasting in Ewe, English and even Patois over a wide range of beats, from the azonto jam Over Again to the conscious reggae anthem Ghetto Arise. More recently, Edem has released other videos for his latest singles Medekuku and last week Heyba.
“Music is not about the dialect, but about the talent, so I am moving to show my skills: reggae, patois, pidgin, fused with English and Ewe.” Edem uses these different means of communication to share his message with the youth in Ghana and beyond, to educate them and mark his contribution as an artist.
Not content with dominating the charts at home in Ghana, Edem is already planning his next steps, collaborating with Togolese stars Toofan and piecing together a continent wide African tour. Not to mention having his videos on rotation on Channel O and Trace TV. Enyo!
Mass Production is available today in iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp and most major music stores and services.
“We are Just A Band, and this is our third studio album. It’s called “Sorry For The Delay”, and it is a collection of songs about life and death, light and darkness, fun, laughter and friendship (good and bad). We hope you will enjoy it.”
Listen to the full album right here:
Also a nice freebie to wet your appetite, check out the first single:
And just to make sure there is no confusion: Akwaaba is not releasing this album, we congratulate the Band on their choice to move forward on their own. We have no doubt they have what it takes to conquer the world with their art, but we remain big supporters and will naturally continue to post about all the great stuff they do!
Loooooong awaited new song from Just A Band‘s upcoming third album, Sorry for the Delay. Can’t wait for the rest… follow their soundcloud for more updates!
It’s hard enough to make it big in places where everybody speaks the same language, so just picture trying to break though in a country where your language is only spoken by a minority of the people. In Ghana, that doesn’t prevent plenty of artists from singing or rapping in Ga, Hausa, or in this case, Ewe.
Super quick recap: Ghana, like most African nations, has arbitrary borders that have little to do with the geographic or ethnic layout of the land. It’s home to many ethnic groups and languages, too many to mention here, but a lot of people speak an Akan language. Even in Accra, home to the Ga people, you hear a lot of twi, the most common form of the Akan language.
So how do you do it if you want to make music in Ewe? Well, as it turns out, the same way you do if you rap in plain English and you’re from, say, the Bronx. You get the community behind you before you even attempt to grow beyond its borders. It’s about having your people behind you.
Introducing Edem, formerly known as Ayigbe Edem, with “ayigbe” being a fairly derogatory word for Ewe in twi. Edem’s first album was all hip-hop sung in Ewe. His first objective was to gather support from his people. As he tells me: “With my first album, I wanted to make sure I would have a set of people who believed in something, I needed to have a core following. Always, with hip-hop, you have people standing for the east, west, south, etc. This following gives you energy, it spreads. 50 Cent might be from Queens, but the buzz in Queens was so strong it spread. Same thing with Jay-Z from Marcy. So I decided to stand for the Volta region. Once that was done, it was time to open up the market.”
Edem succeeded at becoming the go-to musical ambassador for the Ewe people. This success landed him a sponsorship deal with marketing-heavy Nigerian telecom carrier Glo, which means you can see Edem’s face on billboards all over the Volta region.
And just like some of the American rap heavyweights Edem mentioned to me, his buzz spread beyond his area. After becoming unavoidable for the Ewe people, Edem is ready to take over Ghana and Africa. His latest single is called “Over Again,” and although it still has a few verses in Ewe, it is mostly pidgin English, making it accessible to most Ghanaians, and even Anglophones worldwide.“Music is not about the dialect, but about the talent, so I am moving to show my skills: reggae, patois, pidgin, fused with English and Ewe.” Edem is embracing a wider range of sounds, with a new album much broader than hip-hop alone. Another single is “Ghetto Arise,” a reggae song playing on Trace TV and Channel O across Africa. “Ghetto Arise,” like “Over Again,” carries a message, as do most of Edem’s songs. Not one to simply get people to dance, he chooses to use music to educate and further his contribution as an artist. “I am a hip-hop artist, and people have a hard time seeing my evolution, so I am going gradually.”
I find it incredibly inspiring that Edem is able to root his music in a specific cultural terroir, and still reach the entire continent. Versatile, he embraces a broad set of cultural and musical influences, while staying true to his origins. It’s not just having his videos played on continent-wide networks: he is also set to tour Africa with Togo’s number one group, Toofan. A very exciting example of a successful collaboration reaching across national borders. Enyo!
Last week I was invited by a long time supporter of Akwaaba, Nnamdi Moweta, host of the weekly Radio Afrodicia show on KPFK in Los Angeles. This interview is a good roundup of the different music trends and developments I’ve witnessed this past year throughout Africa, in particular in Ghana, where I live, and Angola, where I just traveled to. A few of the cuts we played are from the Lungu Lungu column I write for Fader mag, which is paired with a great playlist of all free tunes you can download here.
After a long break from his solo projects, M3NSA (FOKN Bois, RedRed) is back again! Setting it off with ‘SDI’ featuring Amaarae... This one is for cruising! Driving through countryside Central Europe with co - producer Andras Weil in his classic 1950’s convertible,...
King of Hausa Rap Kirani Ayat dropped visuals to "Guda" the second single off his forthcoming debut album, Aisha Sun. The video was directed by David Nicol-Sey of the North Production . I was shot in Bolgatanga a town in the Upper West Region of Ghana. I showcases...
This is the hottest hiphop song in Ghana at the moment. Advice is a song by the highest " Sarkodie" , he freestyles off instrumentals to Joey B & La Meme gang's song " Stables", to deliver a diss aimed at Shatta Wale. The song is deep and contains some...
Radio Afrodicia (KPFK) Interview
Last week I was invited by a long time supporter of Akwaaba, Nnamdi Moweta, host of the weekly Radio Afrodicia show on KPFK in Los Angeles. This interview is a good roundup of the different music trends and developments I’ve witnessed this past year throughout Africa, in particular in Ghana, where I live, and Angola, where I just traveled to. A few of the cuts we played are from the Lungu Lungu column I write for Fader mag, which is paired with a great playlist of all free tunes you can download here.
After a long break from his solo projects, M3NSA (FOKN Bois, RedRed) is back again! Setting it off with ‘SDI’ featuring Amaarae... This one is for cruising! Driving through countryside Central Europe with co - producer Andras Weil in his classic 1950’s convertible,...
King of Hausa Rap Kirani Ayat dropped visuals to "Guda" the second single off his forthcoming debut album, Aisha Sun. The video was directed by David Nicol-Sey of the North Production . I was shot in Bolgatanga a town in the Upper West Region of Ghana. I showcases...
This is the hottest hiphop song in Ghana at the moment. Advice is a song by the highest " Sarkodie" , he freestyles off instrumentals to Joey B & La Meme gang's song " Stables", to deliver a diss aimed at Shatta Wale. The song is deep and contains some...
