Wednesday 24 August 2016

Let's talk about lyricism in Ghana music

People always say Ghanaians don't care about lyrics and shit but I have never bought into that crap talk. I have had many personal experiences to back my believe. I remember 2014 or so when I was at the Vodafone office In Tema community 1 and a certain slim fair girl(my close friends know my obsession with them, that's why I like taylor swift) was sitting by me. She had a call and her ringtone was Bruno Mars' Grenade. I asked her if she knew what a grenade was, she said no and I taught her and broke down the song for her. She was all smile and we ended up hanging out all night after the leaving the Vodafone office by taking a walk from community 1 to community 6 (close friends know I like to walk) because I explained a few more lyrics to her. She said she loved the songs more she understood them.

I remember one time same yea when I was listening to Jay Z and he said something dope and I screamed, "Herh, I love Jay Z" the track is off osei's collection of greatest hits by Jay Z. A few days before, my cousin, who was my roommate (although we don't share the room) then, said, "I love you, Weezy" out of reflex because of something he said. I remember me and my friends used to stay up all night discussing rap lyrics, not rap beats or rapping style infact music in general way back in high school.
I have no statistics to back that but I dare say Daddy Lumba's Aben Wo Ha is the biggest hit song in Ghana ever. That song was a hit because of the lyrics my dad told me a catchechist almost ruined a sunday by singing it in church back in Nsawam. Ghanaians have always cared about lyrics, it's just  the artists who are lazy and don't want to do things that are both catchy and lyrics like Okomfour Kwaadee and want to blame the audience for their laziness.
Last Saturday, before my show, I was at a funeral. Younger brother walked up to me to recite a line Suli breaks said on his Dorm room EP to me and told me he has been repeating it to himself since he heard it. Something he heard me play at home once (because I listen to albums and Eps with earpiece). Experiences like this and watching Kofi Kinaata wow the crowd with his lyrics during the vgma makes you know Ghanaians still care about lyrics.

I am starting a music section on this blog  this week and this happens to be the first post. Guys keep using uMusic! | umusicoline.com😄

Thursday 18 August 2016

NOTES FROM THE NSAWAM STREET: If You Don't Give Me an Affection for Others


Psalm 49


Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world... 
Last post of the "notes from the Nsawam street" series And it goes like this

I recall all alone life and family and a portion of the most exceedingly awful times throughout my life and how I have survived and been honored by God. Genuine! it frequently hasn't been a luxurious situation, life has been hard and even brutal, awful and weepy but then here I am applauding God for even those horrendous times.

Likely one of the hardest things to overcome is the demise of a kid or mate, most importantly a loved one – The nearest I have gone to that frightfulness is the passing of my Gradma.

It had such a lamentable impact on my Mum and Dad and to the day they kicked the bucket they always remembered her and we as a whole grew up realizing that a catastrophe of gigantic extents had happened to our family.

We were perusing only today in Psalm 49 of how demise finds everybody nobody is excluded and regardless of how may wealth we may have, they won't mean a thing with regards to that last day. All our wealth, family, companions and aggregated "things" won't really mean a thing.

Another misfortune that I figure we as a whole have felt is when family or companions neglect us for no obvious reason. We experience the same all inclusive phases of pain that we encounter when somebody bites the dust.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book "On Death and Dying" affirmed that there were five phases of misfortune and despondency. Presently whether you trust her or not in any event the initial two phases merit taking a gander at, for I feel we would all be able to take in something from her finding that can help us in our Christian walk.

In the first place we have DENIAL – "They haven't left us – they will be back" side effects. Frequently we can't take it in. This transpired with our close family – it was a moderate however particular withdrawal of affections – an extremely cooling state of mind at first then nothing.

This individual didn't physically leave, they are still around. In some cases I feel it would have been exceptional for me to adapt in the event that they had left through and through, however they changed in their state of mind and nature, separating surrounding them, aside from their own family and pushing others to the edge.

At that point we have the ANGER stage and likely this stage is the one I need to invest a little energy with. Outrage with the individual for abandoning us or changing toward us is sadly typical and one where we are totally inconsistent with our Lord.

Outrage should be supplanted with adoration. An affection a long ways past our weak personalities to get a handle on but then it's recorded in the Bible exactly the amount Jesus adores us and He calls us to love as He does.

When I read that I found that difficult to take in. Love like Jesus does? I couldn't and I wouldn't.

I was content with my displeasure – it covered my hurt and exchanged it to the individual that had pulled far from me – I was upbeat being the irate one – after all I had cause to be.

I battled with their abandoning me – I battled with their nonattendance of fondness that companions and relatives offer and I battled with God when I have been incited to attempt to make it right.

That is the point at which the Holy Spirit convicts of things that aren't right in our life. I truly didn't realize what to do or how to respond in this situation, all I knew I was overcome with feeling and yes! outrage.

That is the point at which I implored "Master: Give me an adoration for others."

We may not ever comprehend why these things transpire – Why we are left when our kid passes on or why we lose our mate or closest companion. We may never comprehend why our companions or relatives pull far from us and get to be chilly and far off.

Frequently in the wake of imploring, the answer that appears to return to me increasingly that anything is "I don't need you to know WHY – I simply need you to stroll by confidence and continue believing me after all my elegance is adequate for you."

So here we are left with a request to the Lord: "Please give me an affection for others."

I have demonstrated it again and again, An affection the same as Jesus had? Outlandish? I would have thought so however God has demonstrated to me that we can in fact love as He does and He is so eager to move that affection to us. An astonishing blessing and one where we can impart to others.

God favor you this week as you grapple with an affection that passes our exceptionally understanding. An affection so profound and genuine that empowers us to love the unattractive things that transpire. An adoration that crosses the limits of detachment and relinquishment.

Sunday 7 August 2016

NOTES FROM THE NSAWAM STREET: SAVE US FROM THE NDC/NPP DUOPOLY


You would need to be psychic or one fortunate player to anticipate that what began as an exhausting routine ride, creeping our way through Tema's morning surge hour movement, would deteriorate into an overflowing of torment, and smothered chuckling. On the radio, a Member of Parliament was announcing how he is so miserable for the fate of Ghana just in light of the fact that the "Muntie 3" were imprisoned, in the wake of accepting a command to go to parliament to serve the enthusiasm of his town/town. No one expected it when a carpenter, one column behind me everything except drizzled curses on the poor administrator's head. The man was shaking in fury as he continued to spread all government officials from the same manure can. He said he was through with governmental issues. Another fails miserably.

It would appear the sheer totals being coasted effortlessly were turning his head in circles, and after coming to snapping point, made him retch out a surge of unprintable words. Not really. Having abandoned legislative issues not very far in the past myself, I thought that it was difficult to tune off, however I gazed deceptively out of my window with a look of lack of engagement that would win me no Oscars. Not long after in the wake of battling for the now Assemblyman in his general vicinity, the fruitful government official had summoned every one of his campaigners to a meeting at their standard spot. As had been concurred, it would be an individuals just social gathering to introduce the great times. This is what prompted me to pen this article to be added to the “NOTES FROM THE NSAWAM STREET”. Maybe this can be my personal view politically since I am politically incorrect for the past 3 years now. This is the the fifth article of the series, Notes from the Nsawam Street. Let's go!


That Mother Ghana needs saving from the grip of the constituent gatherings that make up the NDC/NPP duopoly that have held force subsequent to the fourth Republic appeared is not in uncertainty. Grievously for our country Ghana their divisive legislative issues has prompted the polarization of Ghanaian culture.

The extreme competition between the constituent political gatherings making up the NDC/NPP duopoly is likewise turning the lives of a huge number of customary Ghanaians topsy turvy - as the dynamic attacking of the national economy (as a component of a seared earth political system conceived by some gathering hardliners to win power for the principle restriction party the NPP) inflicts significant damage on society.

Today, even individuals from the super-well off criminal syndicates carrying out genuine violations (for the most part office wrongdoings ripping off Mother Ghana in enormous expense evading plans and sundry screwy open acquisition bargains) now regard it savvy to take cover behind the NDC/NPP duopoly keeping in mind the end goal to escape equity.

Plainly, we are at a point in our nation's history, when Mother Ghana frantically needs a sound third-compel in our country's legislative issues, to assume control over the running of our adored nation, after the December 2016 presidential race.

That third-constrain should administer the nation after seventh January, 2017, at the leader of a legislature of national solidarity, made up of the country's best brains (regardless of the named individual's political connection): if our nation is to advance once more.

The miserable truth is that our country Ghana will keep on marking time if the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) keep on dominating our country - and political force keeps on being exchanged between those two misty and degenerate political gatherings in the administration of our nation.

The inquiry is: Why are the hard-squeezed individuals of Ghana squandering valuable time enduring the NDC/NPP duopoly - when there is not a solitary country anyplace on the planet that has ended up prosperous, which before that financial change occurring, had been an enraptured society riven by gathering governmental issues?

No cutting edge country today can succeed on the off chance that it keeps on residual a profoundly partitioned society.

However that is accurately what Ghanaians are evidently trusting will happen to their abundantly isolated country - on the off chance that they vote in favor of both of the presidential applicants of the constituent gatherings that make up the NDC/NPP duopoly that have ruled Ghana since the fourth Republic appeared. Some trust.

The Question is: Is this not a current African country loaded with smart people?

Why then are such a large number of Ghanaians resolved to destroy their aggregate future by proceeding to aimlessly bolster the presidential competitors of the divisive NDC/NPP duopoly - when each recognizing and devoted Ghanaian knows consummately well that as a people we should be brought together if the venture Ghana is to ever succeed and flourish?

Is it yet not clear to the more youthful era of instructed Ghanaians that whichever of the two gatherings that make up that degenerate and super-savage NDC/NPP duopoly that ends up in the political wild after this current December's presidential decision, will depend on effectively undermining the country building exertion: as beyond any doubt as day takes after night?

Is that not accurately what the radicals and hardliners in the NPP have been occupied with since they lost force in the December 2008 presidential and parliamentary races?

It's a given that if the NPP's presidential competitor wins the presidential decision, the NDC's fanatics and gathering hardliners will likewise depend on undermining the country building exertion, when they are sent into the political wild by voters in December.

The antagonism of that silly "my-gathering my-tribe-right-or-wrong" political rationality that aides such a large number of in this nation with regards to voting in across the nation decisions must be ejected rapidly if Ghana is to be placed in a position to empower it push forward quickly once more.

On the off chance that Ghanaians commit the lethal error of voting in favor of either President John Dramani Mahama or Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, Ghana's economy will keep on deteriorating: on the grounds that both political gatherings that make up the NDC/NPP duopoly are obligated to the equivalent personal stakes that are depleting our country of its extremely soul through abnormal state debasement.

The two gatherings are essentially unique reason vehicles utilized by Ghana's vampire-elites that are the nearby toadies of the outside carpetbaggers ripping our country off in those sundry uneven assentions marked by our pioneers throughout the years - those unpleasant understandings that have sanctioned the selling of the more youthful era's future prosperity.

For once Ghanaians need to set aside dazzle loyalty to the NDC/NPP duopoly.

The most taught amongst the more youthful era of Ghanaians should see obviously that an isolated country can never advance and succeed - not when the principle restriction gathering will effectively attack the country building exertion whiles in the political wild after January 2017: in order to make the representing party disliked and help it win power in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary decisions.

The main trust in Ghana would be triumph for the presidential applicant of an assembled new Convention People's Party (CPP).

The supporters of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah ought to quit guaranteeing to be Nkrumahists, if even with all the proof of the misery the masses of the Ghanaian individuals are experiencing, today, despite everything they don't comprehend why they have to join under the pennant of the Convention People's Party (CPP) and select Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom as their presidential hopeful with Dr. Edward Mahama as his running mate.

Do they not even now understand that Nkrumah's Ghana needs safeguarding from the grip of the NDC/NPP duopoly - today's neo-liberal instruments of neocolonialism and colonialism? How visually impaired would one be able to get? Haaba.

The time has now wanted with or without Nkrumahist government officials to put individual desire and biased partisanship, and join around the administration of Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom and Dr. Edward Mahama in a unified new CPP - which will lead the change of Ghana into an African likeness the libertarian social orders of Scandinavia: in the wake of rising triumphant in the December 2016 presidential race.

Bona fide Nkrumahists need to outhink and defeat the decided specialists of neocolonialism and colonialism who have halted the Nkrumahist front from rejoining under the pennant of the CPP throughout recent decades - lastly rejoin and win energy to advance Nkrumah's Ghana at the end of the day: for the advantage of the considerable number of individuals of our nation.

For Mother Ghana's purpose Nkrumahists must join around the bid of a Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom/Dr. Edward Mahama presidential ticket. This is just a suggestion from a politically incorrect man.