The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

I met Kwame Nsiah-Apau and interviewed him in 2008. I came away very impressed. He was working towards his Bachelor's Degree at KNUST. Really smart dude. Time has proven that he is a really smart dude. Growing up in Ghana, we say the smartest folks become the doctors. He calls himself the Rap Doctor.  He helped popularize Wear Ghana and has become one of our best #MadeInGhana ambassadors. More on this later.  He and Okyeame Quophi helped popularize hiplife through Akyeame, one of the first great duos. His successful solo career took hiplife to another level. Mesan Aba is one of my all-time favorites, and his rap on this track is legendary. Word play be what. However, we're talking about his solo hits . He called himself the best rapper alive. I started this series with Obrafour and ended with Okyeame Kwame, it's apt - they have some small history together. I think Okyeame Kwame challenges him for best Ghanaian lyricist ever . Let's listen to the music. Woso (2009) T...

 While the likes of Angelique Kidjo were making lots of money playing to foreign and mostly white crowds, P-Square was also making serious money playing to Nigeria, African and black crowds on the continent and beyond. They were the first African act doing popular youthful African music to really go global, alongside 2Face Idibia. And they could perform! I once went to  their concert  in Oakland, California and they were worth every price of admission. They released a string of hits in the first decade of the 21st century and continued to remain at the top. They have many classics to choose from. Here are my top 3. No One Like You (2007) One of the best African wedding songs ever.  The video is spectacular. P-Square is probably the biggest African act ever and tracks like this prove their standing. Their use of Pidgin English and regular English is great and the lyrics to this song is great too. The song starts off really well in my opinion, "Hello how you doing; My ...

One cannot talk about Ofori Amponsah without talking about Daddy Lumba, methinks. DL aka Daddy Lumba aka Da Legend released some songs at the turn of the century featuring Mr All4Real. A couple of years down the line, he became the biggest musician in Ghana. He led the Contemporary Highlife genre, in tow with my buddy Kofi Nti, helped ragga become part of mainstream Ghana music through his features with Barosky.  Ofori Amponsah became born-again (which makes me think about Lord Kenya's song of the name and Lord Kenya's story as well). He never quite had popular gospel songs. His highlife songs are classics and they live on. His music features heavily in Ghanaian weddings too. His songs feature in my favorites .  Otoolege (2005) I believe Otoolege is one of the top five songs ever from Ghana. Apart from it being well-written, well-composed and well-sung, this song ended the dominance of hiplife from 2001 to 2004 at the Ghana Music Awards. I love singing this song in the shower...

Ahead of March 6th , I told my wife Tracy that I was going to an event which was about Karaoke, Sip, & Paint . I mentioned that I was not as keen about the painting, but the karaoke? Count me there. Sipping is just a bonus. Babe said that why would you go to a painting thing and not paint ? She's a painter. Literally in more than one way and figuratively too. She's painted some pieces, and she can draw well to boot. I have always wanted to go with her to some of the painting things, whether at the Republic Bar, Eleven15 , anywhere we can access. Ghana's Independence Day Holiday brought an opportunity for me and I took it. Today is March 23 , as in 23-3 , which has 233 in it. I took another opportunity to expand the painting, especially of a Ghana map on Ghana's birthday . The venue was in Labone - the Brown Sugar Lounge . I arrived at Brown Sugar Lounge and sought out  Efe Keyz . She's a  musician , an entrepreneur running El's Foods Ghana and an  AccraKon...

March 6 is a very important date for me . I think you know why. March 23 is also very important. You might not know why. It's not because it is the date I am writing this blog post . It is because it is 23-3 , the date. You get it now? 233. #233moments . This is the date within #HeritageMonth that I chose to write about what I did on the date for which March is also called #GhanaMonth . I had a memorable day.  I wanted to go for the #HeritageCaravan this year. But even though I carved out the time; time, chance, expenses, responsibilities happened to it. I remember how I shouted "No, No, No" when I heard on the Citi Breakfast Show one morning in January that it was sold out. I'd come back to that in another blog post. I spent the first weekend in March in Elmina due to family engagements, great way to start the month actually. I kept wondering what I would do for Ghana's birthday . I was not going to attend the parade, I listed many reasons around that in an...