The Lost Polaroids

An Introduction to Kiki Gyan’s Magical Moments

Kiki Gyan was undoubtedly one of Ghana’s finest artistic talent of all time with a metaphysical understanding of sound, harmony and composition that deified him in the 1970s and took him around the world by the age of 18. His music, as a solo musician, writer/composer, arranger and session music and also as part of superstar afro-fusion band Osibisa will forever be the soundtrack to a lot of…

Album Review: Gafacci Engineers Lofi & Asorkpor Portal on “Tash BNM”

The contemporary music beaming from Accra’s coast and reverberating with the waves of the Atlantic across the world has always been driven by the experimentation. Whilst being rooted in the basic mechanics of the indigenous sound of the city, artists such as DJ Katapila and Nshonna Muzik typified and catalyzed this love for re-engineering electronic sounds to create genre-defying classics. On Gaf…

Short Wave | African Combat Sciences with Dr. Ọbádélé Kambon || Ep.003

Dr. Ọbádélé Kambon and Abibifahodie Asako ‘Afrikan Liberation Capoeira’ specialize in the re-africanization of Capoeira, a combat science that was developed in Angola but has since been divorced from this source, taking on a new and false portuguese identity. On this episode of Short Wave, we spend time with Dr. Ọbádélé Kambon, a Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies (IAS),…

Album Review: Blick Bassy Spins History into Sonic Gold on “1958”

Blick Bassy specializes in a very specific feeling; a kind of weightless frenzy marinated in bliss and angst that can only be transmitted through the spellbinding webs of harmony his voice weaves. Locating this feeling would mean drifting between the serenading acoustic guitar melodies of vintage coastal highlife that invite the hips and shoulders to sway and glide to the rhythm, and the soulful…

Short Wave | Daniel Anum Jasper, Pioneer of Hand-Painted Movie Posters | EP 002

Daniel Anum Jasper has been making street art in Accra, Ghana since 1986. He is well known for his signature hand-painted movie posterswhich has become an emblem of the rapid growth of cinema culture from the late 80s to the early 2000s in major African cities like Accra, Ghana and are now relics of this gallant epoch. On this episode of Short Wave, we delve deep into the development of his style…

Interview: Omolola Ajoa’s journey in making The FUFU Film Project

Cinema’s magical largely lies in its ability to give our stories their own lives, whilst imprinting them with our identities and providing space for those stories to bloom. Today, access to this super power is greatly improved and many people, especially from marginalized communities, are empowered enough to translate the intricacies of their lived and inherited experiences into a medium that is…

Short Wave |ep.001| Martial Panucci on Hip Hop Music in Congo, French Neo-colonialism, and Living in Exile

Martial Pa’nucci is a hip-hop artist from the Republic of Congo currently living in exile in Burkina Faso following various threats to his life as a result of his activism through music against the dictatorship in his home. Whilst in Accra for a workshop engagement, we managed to spend some time with him to learn a bit more about himself, his work and his general outlook on the lives of artists…

Album Review: Youssou N’Dour Pay Tribute To Architects of His “History” on New Project

Senegalese giant of contemporary African music, Youssou N’Dourhas enjoyed a famed career spanning over forty studio albums and countless honours, all of which are bookmarks on a steady and mesmerizing refinement of his fusion sound, where the intrinsic melodies and textures present in the xylophones and talking drums of the Serer people meet the dessert blues guitars and synthesizers to form…

Tresor – Nostalgia Album Review

Music, regardless of the time, place or culture from which it emerges is always about emotion. Sometimes the best way to reach those latent emotions hiding behind the monotony of our days, be it an iridescent joy or a smoldering pain, is by alloying the sound with memory. On DRC-born South Africa artist Tresor’sthird studio album, he manages to do just this be rooting his sound in the memories of…

Why R2Bees’ “Site 15″ is a Candid Ode to Hip-Life as an Art Form

Over the recent history of contemporary Ghanaian music, very few group acts have managed to consistently entertain and actively influenced youth culture with as much power as have R2Bess. Ever since their sleeper cult hit, Yawa Girl which brought them from Tema’s competitive and graciously talented underground world to the mainstream Hip-Life audience in Ghana and beyond, they have cemented their…

Womanist Sounds For International Women’s Day 2019

  **Editors note: This month we have a special featured mix for International Women’s Day 2019 by moshood. one of our fave guest writers.**

struggle is arguably prime among the innumerable uses for music; and, because a people in struggle do not cease being human, music, in that very realm, is also for sheer listening pleasure, for casual singing along, and dancing, to. it is in the spirit of all…

Album Review: Salif Keita Reveals Final Act on Un Autre Blanc

It is hard to argue against the fact that Salif Keita’s voice is one of the most recognizable African voices in recent history. The Malian vocal juggernaut has been an ever-present force of bliss in the constantly evolving afropop scene since the 1970s, creating eccentric blues melodies that continue to swirl through airways around the world today. His dexterity with the rhythms of life of the…

Album Review: Wiyaala Asserts Heritage on Sissala Goddess

Wiyaala’s eponymous debut album was a gust of fresh air that shook up the age old echo chambers in Ghanaian mainstream music. Till this day, I still get goose bumps anytime I remember her album release concertin 2014 at Alliance Francaise Accra, which was an onslaught of magical bliss disguised as music from a tireless dynamo announcing her artistry to the world. In the four years between then…

Film Review: Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart Delivers Nollywood Class Act

Like many other twenty-something year olds born in the late nineties in anglophone West Africa, I grew up on and loved Nollywood cinema. The outrageous storylines of infidelity, young people battling odds to find financial success, evil in-laws and even more evil village chiefs, brought my family together every night after school and work. I don’t know anyone who did not rightfully fall in love…

Film Review: Protecting Cultural Heritage Through Food in “Burkinabè Bounty”

Iara Lee’s 2017 documentary, Burkinabè Rising: The Art of Resistance in Burkina Fasodid a great job at providing much needed background and context to the 2015 revolution that was led by the youth and fueled by the spirit of Thomas Sankara. The film surveyed the various facets of the culture of resistance in Burkina Faso’s youth mainly from the point of view of artists/activists who used their…