Overnight Celebrity

Before I get to the more interesting part of the post, I guess I should explain the deal with the picture. So… basically I was walking back from class last week and a soccer, er, I mean football rolled down the stairs of the hostel. When I tried to throw the ball back up to its owner, it somehow bounced off a wall or something, and next thing I know I’m getting showered with shards of glass. Sounds bad, right? It gets worse. The actual light proceeded to plunge from the ceiling, fell on my head, and shattered upon contact. I actually only got a little bump, and cleaned the little cut on my head in no time. No worries, folks- I got it checked out at the local clinic a day or two later and I’m straight. A few days down the road, I also seemed to rid myself of the nervous tick I got every time I saw a fluorescent light… just playing.

Since then, I also got the chance to witness the University of Ghana’s student-directed presentation of Dreamgirls. Apparently, nobody around here’s heard of Jennifer Holliday, because the play was promoted as “an adaptation of the Dreamworks© film.” (that’d be the one that came out last year with Beyonce. Go figure. Anyway, the production was put on in an outdoor theater, and I must say the occasional bat (I’m still on the fence about whether their fruity or carnivorous) soaring overhead really added to the ambience. I also got a kick out of the Ghanaian cast doing their best Motownesque impressions to some rickety renditions played over Casio keyboard beats. When it came to songs, the cast picked their battles, sometimes singing along with these low-budget tracks, sometimes singing with the originals (competing with the original vocals), and sometimes singing with no instrumental at all. Oddly enough, the crowd turned out even more hilarious than the play’s cast. In one scene when a long-time manager leaves his famous R&B singer client (Eddie Murphy’s character in the film version), he exits the scene by telling his friend that he loves him. Apparently, that doesn’t fly to well in the land of the Black Star. After hearing a guy Platonically express affection to another male, the crowd responded with screams and wails of various “emotive expressions” I’ve grown accustomed to here. After about 30 seconds of homophobic pandemonium, the place settled down and the show went on. Diana Ross would be proud.

Finally, I’m getting to the title of tonight’s post. So, a popular hangout spot on campus is called “On the Run.” Yes, just like the ones at mobile filling stations in the U.S. However, instead of being a convenience store to grab a newspaper and coffee, this place actually sells pizza, burgers, chicken, snacks, ice cream, and various alcoholic beverages. On any given night, you can catch the who’s who of the Legon night-scene decked out in their finest gear. Not everyone takes it this seriously, but quite a few people roll in their like it’s the club. Anyway, every Tuesday pizzas are sold at a buy-one-get-one-free rate. Naturally, the spot’s especially packed on Tuesday nights, and my friends and I usually find ourselves their waiting between 45 minutes to 2 hours waiting on our hand-made pan pizzas. The wait’s not a huge deal since we have company. OK. Now that I’ve painted the picture of the happening scene that is “On the Run,” I can share last night’s tale.

Basically, after eating my food I was engaged in conversation with another foreign student about something or other. Next thing I know, this local cat “Jazzy” (the nicknames here are OFF THE CHAIN, people) walks up to my face and starts rhyming. Clearly the brotha had taken a bit too much to drink, so he was feeling especially bold. After a few off-color, barely rhyming lines, I chose to teach the poor fellow a lesson. Long story short, 15 minutes later we’re surrounded by roughly 30 people hanging on our every word. Yes, it erupted into a full-blown one-on-one freestyle rap battle. Taking 30 seconds each, we did our best to win over the crowd. Theoretically, this should have been a tougher job for me, considering I lacked home court advantage… However, after a few lines, the crowd realized what poor Jazzy had gotten himself into, and roared with feedback and applause after my verbal salvos. After 10 rounds, I was crowned victorious winning a whopping 8 rounds. As far as I can guess, the only reason the other 2 slipped is because he started attacking me in Ga, the indigenous language to Accra of which I don’t speak one word. (Twi, the language I study here is widespread, but indigenous areas north of this city.) The end of the night ended with chants, and me standing on top of a chair riling the crowd up like Shaq before the finals. People caught a bit of the battle on camera, and a lot of spectators called their friends up to share news of the “fair skinned American rapper with the goatee” who had put their countryman to shame. By the time I made it back to the Hostel a little after midnight, I was greeted by inquisitive neighbors who had already heard about the spectacle from friends. Obviously, it’s all just fun and games, and Jazzy and I are still cool and harbor no hard feelings. (Conveniently, he actually “forgot” last night’s battle due to his alcohol intake.) Seriously though, the thing I love about hip-hop battles is that “the beef stays on wax.” In other words, you may verbally confront your opponent in the name of the game, but at the end of the day you have mutual respect for one another, and these events rarely end in any sort of escalation. Anyway, a bunch of people here have already heard about last night’s event, and since I’m the only brotha here this color, it’s not hard to spot me. I guess I’ll enjoy the buzz while it lasts.

P.S.
I’m supposed to be hitting the studio this weekend with some of my friends from Legon. This’ll be the first recording I’ll have done here so far, and hopefully the first of many. Looks like I may be coming home with some audio souvenirs too.