The energy today in Accra was crazy. The game stirred up the city on an otherwise quiet sunday. We’ve got more pix coming, but for now let’s celebrate the man of the hour, the Black Stars striker, Mr Asamoah Gyan! Ananse saw him and a bunch of other top soccer players at Afrodisiac a few weeks ago. This is a little more paparazzi style than we usually go for, but we hope all see this as a friendly incursion into Accra’s nightlife, and an homage to the players, cheerful and filled with energy. Go Black Stars!!!!!
Asamoah Gyan with Togo’s Emmanuel Adebayor (!)
Rahim AyewDerek Boateng
Adebayor breaking apart the dancefloor, with his *Francophone* DJ blasting coupé décalé!!
(apologies for the erratic layout. WordPress /Macbook not very cooperative and it’s getting late…)
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nobody is doing more to expose the best underground music in Africa to increasingly wider audiences than Akwaaba. The fair trade record label started by Benjamin Lebrave has given the world possibly their best album yet, 82 from Kenyan pop outfit Just a Band.
You may know Just a Band from their incredibly popular youtube video for Ha-He, but Just a Band has much more to offer than imitations of Chuck Norris. This album covers many bases, mixing bumping club tracks with cooler hip-hop and heartfelt down-tempo tracks. The three artists that make up Just a Band, Blinky, Dan and Jim, bring out different elements of their personality to collaboratively create a style all their own.
Just a Band accomplishes something truly impressive: they manage to create music that has widespread mainstream appeal without totally foregoing their integrity as artists. Many African musicians struggling to find their way often go for easy cop outs and cheesy effects, but Just a Band creates a production style that sounds contemporary and clean. They also know how to mesh hip-hop style lyrics in English or Swahili with R&B style vocals and electronic beats. The end result is something new and interesting you probably wouldn’t expect to come out of Africa.
This album is something new and different. If you were to listen to it blindly, you might think it came from a house producer in Miami. That’s what I like about it though, it’s maintains its African identity while simultaneously being obviously affected by European and American electronic musical styles. While it’s not easy to cross over as a Kenyan pop star, these guys have as good a shot as anybody.”
We’ve been really, really bad about keeping the site up to date these last couple of weeks. We’re just too busy schmoozin’ around in Accra! These photos will give you a quick taste of the types of encounters we’re making on the ground in Ghana. Left to right, top to bottom:
I’ve been trying to leave Tamale in the north of Ghana all day, which leaves me with plenty of time to fill you in.
What do we know about the North of Ghana? It’s fairly isolated from the south, where both major cities sit: Accra the economic heart of the country, and Kumasi, center of the dominant Ashanti culture. Culturally the north is quite different, it’s a sahelian society, the climate is much drier, hotter, and the culture is much closer to what we saw in places like Mali.
Yet there is hardly any communication with the neighboring Sahelian – Francophone – countries. The north seems like such a cul-de-sac really: artificially landlocked from neighboring Francophone countries (Burkina mostly, with Togo and Cote d’Ivoire on each side), and politely ignored for the most part from the more afluent and populous south.
That explains how isolated the culture – and music – have remained. King Ayisoba is probably the most famous voice coming from the region, although to most readers he’s probably still a complete unknown. Look up his music on myspace or iTunes, Ayisoba has an incredible voice, but will leave you thinking he has two or three!
Besides Ayisoba, whom we’ll get back to soon, there is almost no structure in place for music. Musicians stick to the traditional circuit, mostly playing for funerals and weddings, sometim. That’s for the traditional musicians, for the home studio generation there are almost no shows, no bars to play at. So not much of an industry.
Yet – and you saw this coming – TONS OF RAW TALENT. We’ve got beautiful videos which our connection won’t really allow us to post just yett, but check in soon for more.
Asamoah Gyan with Togo’s Emmanuel Adebayor (!)
Rahim Ayew
Derek Boateng
Adebayor breaking apart the dancefloor, with his *Francophone* DJ blasting coupé décalé!!
(apologies for the erratic layout. WordPress /Macbook not very cooperative and it’s getting late…)
