Back In Babylon.

I'm home. There are way too many thoughts to post now, but suffice to say the culture shock is a lot more difficult this time around. For now, let's reflect.



As always, thoughts and feedback are welcome.

P.S.
I will be continuing this blog now that I'm back in the states, so feel free to check in from time to time on the latest updates with Vocab Productions.

It Takes a Village

I’ve been mentally preparing myself for my 10/16 departure for a while, but it’s barely sinking in. They’re telling me the eastern seaboard of the U.S. has received heavy snow lately, and just yesterday my dad said he woke up to 23°F weather! I haven’t worn long sleeves since March, so I’m having trouble visualizing what the New York climate really has in store for me. But enough about that.

This past weekend, I took my second trip back to the Volta Region, the area on the Ghana’s Eastern border. I heard that my friend from the Int’l Hostel was headed there with some friends, so the night before our departure I accepted his invite to join them. Since it’s exam period, the people I usually travel with were unable to join us, and I ended up going with a group of about eight people from another exchange program. For those of you who have kept up with my posts, you may remember Dagbe, the cultural center near the Togo border where I took some amazing drumming and dance classes. Well, since “my money be small small” (I’m broke) I decided I’d head back up with the crew, but opted to stay in an neighboring village for free instead of the center’s pricey guest accommodations. That decision turned out to be one of best calls I’ve made all semester, and my friend James was more than happy to accommodate. James is one of the center’s many drumming instructors, and after I met him during my first round of classes he said I would always be welcome to stay in his home. After a pleasantly uneventful 3 hour ride in a tro-tro (mid-sized van/gypsy cab), I split from the rest of the group and settled into my quarters in the village.

Although I’ve studied Asante Twi and can get by with my basic skills, my rudimentary abilities were useless during my trip. While it’s the most widely spoken non-English language in Ghana (about 44% of Ghanaians claim it as their first language), it’s only one of about 40 of the nation’s languages. The Volta Region is home to the Ewe, and these people speak a language of the same name. If any villagers spoke a second language, it was usually French (due to the proximity of the Francophone Togo). This made for an especially interesting experience, as only some of the educated children and the Dagbe instructors spoke any English. Despite the language barrier, many of the children remembered me from my previous trip. As I walked around the village after unpacking, I was greeted with a few excited shouts of “Kwame!!” from the friends I made some weeks back. Despite limited communication, I was received quite warmly by my extended family in the village and oftentimes the kids were able to translate for me.

The three days and two nights I spend in the village consisted of some of the most memorable, emotional, puzzling, and rewarding experiences I’ve had in Ghana. There are many vivid snapshots and moments frozen in my mind that I’m sure these memories are going to stay with me for long time…

The exuberant welcome bear hug from Selorm. The impromptu barefoot, bare-chested race through cassava fields with Felix. The amazing jog on the beach that culminated in a dive into the refreshing Atlantic. A dizzying motorbike ride through the darkness with two companions. The hollowed out shell I used to draw bathwater from the well. The countless coconuts that provided perpetual refreshment during the hot days. The calluses on my fingers from playing the Gatingo, Sogo, Kitee and Master Drums with my brothers. I don’t even mind the contaminated stew that left me out of commission for the last 24 hours.

There’s no way I can do justice to the experience through text, let alone verbal expression.

26 Days Left- The Countdown Begins.

I probably haven’t posted in a little while because I don’t want to think about leaving here. Anyway, classes ended last week, and that brings us to the reading days period. I actually missed my final week of courses due to a bad case of the flu that kept me bed-bound for about 3 days. I never thought I’d be keeping my fingers crossed for the flu, but when my symptoms started showing up I figured anything would be better than malaria. Luckily, it ended up being a virus my immune system had fought before, so I recovered after a few days.

Before my bout of the flu, I took my second overnight trip to Cape Coast with Jason, Ashley, and another international student named Monique. Anand, our friend who was here last year, told us about his friend Lolonyo in Cape Coast when I first got here, but I hadn’t given him a call until the day before we planned on going. Characteristic of the incredible hospitality that so many Ghanaians have extended to me here, Lolonyo not only offered to pick us up from the bus, but also hooked us up with cheap reservations at a hotel. As if that wasn’t enough, he also ended up spending the entire two days and evening with us and acted as a tour guide during the whole trip. He’s working on his masters degree at the University of Cape Coast, so we stopped by the school and took a look at the impressive campus before we got dinner. We ate at a restaurant adjacent to Cape Coast Castle, and it was a pretty strange experience enjoying chicken and red-red (beans and plantains) while gazing out on the very shore that my ancestors could have departed from. We took a nice walk on the beach afterwards, and needless to say, it was a very thought-provoking evening. Lolonyo took us to a club later than night and we headed to bed afterwards to prepare for next day.

While the Cape Coast Castle, the first slave castle we visited back in late August, was a major exporter of slaves, the Elmina Castle seems to have very important historical significant as well. Elmina seemed to be a larger hub of slave trafficking, and apparently it is the oldest standing European structure in Sub-Saharan Africa (some of the locals shared that with us like it was something to be proud of… go figure). It’s about 15 minutes away from the first castle, so after we reached town we had no problem getting there. After our first visit to Cape Coast, I’ve had time to digest the whole experience so this time around the tour wasn’t as difficult. While the first walkthrough on our last trip was an intensely emotional experience, this one was more thought provoking and a bit less painful. The beginning of our tour took us to the male and female quarters in addition to a church where (ironically enough) the Portuguese traders worshipped on the premises. After these first few stops, our party was joined by a group of Nigerian tourists. They appeared comfortably middle class, and the attire worn by the women in the party indicated that they were Muslim. Anyway, as they walked with us into one of the holding cells, one of the men commented to his wife, “Why are you sad? Don’t be upset- this is history.” umm?! I guess, from his perspective as an African whose lives in the land of his ancestors, it’s possible to dissociate yourself from the legacy of the slave trade. But I definitely found his remarks troubling, and they got me thinking…

…To some people, history is a grainy black and white photograph, sped-up footage from a silent film, an obsolete artifact covered in dust- an inanimate representation of a specific time period that exists in a vacuum. Even for me, it wasn’t until I reached college that I was able to fully internalize and understand the fact that millions of individuals (ACTUAL people) were subjected these atrocities. That means that the rooms we walked in were actually filled beyond capacity with sweaty, frightened, huddled bodies of people as real as you and me who were destined for slavery or death. When you’re in the moment, it’s a little more difficult to ignore the cold, hard facts. If you’re in a high school classroom, you can tune out your teacher and close your textbook. Even if you’re watching the History Channel, you can change the channel or run to the kitchen to grab a soda. Somehow, even though most people don’t deny the painful aspects of history, it’s difficult for them to fully realize them as reality. With that in mind, I understand what the man in my tour group was expressing. Not only did the events occur in another time and place from his current home, but he personally felt unaffected by the specific events of centuries ago. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it wasn’t until colonialism that his ancestors were subjugated and dominated by Western oppressors. Then again, maybe he hasn’t thought through any of this at all. (Like most parents today, maybe he’s just the cliché apathetic adult and simply “has a mortgage to pay…” By the way, is the process of paying off loans, bills, and taxes really a valid excuse for not thinking?? But I digress…)

I guess my point is that too many Americans (white and black) view pro-colonial Africa, slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and even the Civil Rights Era as freeze frames of the past with no bearing on our collective destiny. In way too many instances, I’ve had peers in high school and college tell me racism doesn’t exist, black people should stop digging in old wounds of the past, or that slavery occurred too long ago to affect anyone today (read Dr. Joy Leary’s writings on “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” and try having that conversation with me again). How can anyone walk through a slave castle where human beings were raped, beaten, starved, killed, and shipped off like cattle and not be moved, regardless of your heritage? Perhaps I’m too much of a sentimentalist, or overly ethnocentric. Personally, I’d just like to think that I have a brain, and I use it.

Without any full appreciation of the importance of the past, how can anyone expect to have the foggiest idea of where they’re going? And this leads me to the underlying theme of my entire trip: Sankofa. It’s important, people. Think about it.

November. The Saga Continues...

Click on the pic to zoom in. Can you find me? Haha, as is the case in most Ghanaian gatherings I've attended, it's not that hard.

If I had more time and discipline, I’d post on here every day. There’s been so much going on lately, and since no two days are the same I guess I’ll just add some highlights from the past week or so.

Last Thursday Ashley and I got the opportunity to speak to some local secondary school graduates applying to school in the U.S. International admissions representatives from Harvard and Penn were presenting at the American Embassy not far from campus, and I was invited through a connection I have to the office. It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit that watching the visual presentation on Penn made me a lil’ bit nostalgic. The 50 or so kids in attendance were a really sharp group, and given the amount of Ghanaians we have at Penn, I’m sure I’ll see at least a few of them my senior year. At the event, Ashley and I also met two recent Penn graduates who are currently based in Accra. After the session, we ate at a local Caribbean restaurant owned by one of the alumnae’s mothers. Over curry chicken, plantains, rice and beans, we shared a few laughs about black student life on Penn’s campus and shared the conclusion that some things really never do change.

That night, I did my second radio show here in Ghana on Radio Universe, Legon’s campus radio station that actually has a large audience outside of the school. It was a great experience because I got to go one-on-one with the host/DJ Dr. Carl. Beginning at 9:30, we played some tracks from the last album and took a phone call from with my bandmate and homeboy Nana. Even though he’s back at Penn, he’s on the album and also spent some time here last year (his family’s from Ghana), so we had a little chat during the first hour of the show. After playing a few more of my newer tracks, we took a few calls. To my surprise, the phone lines were really busy, and about a dozen people called in to say how much they were feeling the music. After that, Dr. Carl played a bunch of GH (Ghanaian Hip-Hop) tracks and then I got back on the mic. I pretty much blacked out for the next 30 minutes or so, freestying about Ghana and incorporating words that were given to me on the fly. One of our last callers was none other than Jason (my other bandmate who’s here this semester), and after he kicked a little flow on the radio, we invited him to the studio. Since we were broadcasting from on campus, he had no trouble getting there soon, and we closed the show with some more freestyling and ended at midnight. I think I could get used to this radio thing.

Last Sunday morning, I was lucky enough to attend an outdooring, or naming ceremony, for my friend’s newborn baby girl. It was a held at the home of an American expatriate who has a home close to campus, and it was well attended by many of my recent acquaintances from the area (that's us in the picture.) It was a very moving ceremony, and my boy Jawhi (the cat with the 'fro on the far left) was beaming with pride all morning. It was an honor to be invited to the event, and besides getting to experience a traditional ceremony I got to interact with a lot of members of the Diaspora who have recently relocated to Ghana.

Later that day, Ashley, Jason, and our homie Monique went to see proud Penn graduate John Legend (or John Stephens, for those Quakers who graduated around 2000) perform in Accra’s Independence Square. Recent flooding in Ghana’s northern region has resulted in extensive damage and displacement up there, and there seems to be a concerted government and grassroots effort to help out those affected by the disaster. (Funny, you’d think the same thing would happen in the mighty U.S.… right?) Anyway, it was an amazing show, and his 10-piece band was a lot more impressive than I expected it to be. My only issue was that as an American performer, he was given treatment far different than that of the legendary artists hailing from Ghana. The woman who introduced him warmed up the crowd by exclaiming “We have John Legend all the way from the United States here in Ghana for the first time! I saw him back stage with my very own eyes, and he’s right here in Independence Square as I speak! Let’s make sure we receive him well so he can return to America and tell everyone how wonderful his audience in Ghana was!” Umm… I understand that you may want to give a star a warm welcome to your city for the first time, but do you really have to belittle your whole nation in the process?

Anyway, as nice as it was to hear “Ordinary People” and the other hits live, the highlight of the show was definitely the closer. The concert ended with international reggae superstar Luciano putting down an amazing set. There’s a sizable fringe population of Rastafarians in Ghana, and although you rarely see more than a few together at once, they all seemed to know that their brother was going to be in town. As soon as he hit the stage, the Square turned into a sea of dreadlocks, and somehow a mysterious sort of haze seemed to settle in overhead shortly afterwards. I guess it was just the steam created from all of that body heat, right...? haha, all interesting spectators aside, the show was absolutely incredible. These days, most people in the States seem to think of dancehall artists like Sean Paul, Beenie Man and Shaggy as reggae artists. Well, I’m happy to report that reggae as Robert Nesta, Peter Tosh, and Gregory Isaacs created is alive and well. Luciano is pretty popular in the West Indian and African community in the States, but I never had the opportunity to hear his music. Dude was amazing! Rumor has it the guy’s at least in his 40’s, but that didn’t stop him from doing a front handspring right before the opening to a song. With all of the acrobatics on stage, he never missed a beat or lost control of his breath. His band, with a traditional instrumental setup, was equally as impressive. I know I’m late to the game with this artist, but even being the music snob that I am I’ll admit that I was missing out until this point.

After classes this week, we headed back over the Hypnotiq lounge on Thursday night. The place was a bit more jumping than usual, as my boys PY and DK who host the spot have been going extra hard with promoting the past few weeks. They’ve added live instruments to the mix, so this time around we got to get a little more funky with it. Unfortunately, the keyboard won’t be in until next week, but I still got to perform a bit vocally. I’ve become a regular at the spot now, so it’s nice being able to walk straight in without paying a cover. (DK to the doorman: “C’mon man, this is VOCAB! He’s a performer! You should know this guy by now. Just let him pass through.”) As usual, we warmed up the set with a little freestyling on the microphones, then proceeded to do our own things. Jason hopped on the drums, and after he hit a steady tempo I decided to just start flowing to the breakbeat. Things went pretty well, and the crowd received the performance as warmly as they ever have. A local reggae band did their thing too, and the vibes in the house were off the charts as the chemistry between artists flowed. I’ve passed my CD’s around to a few people and have been heard here and there, so it’s cool to get a little bit of recognition for the music. Incidentally, someone stopped me in one of the dorms the other night to ask if I was the same rapper from the infamous “On the Run” battle a few weeks back. When I replied yes, he explained to his friend in pigeon how I had done in my opponent. It pretty funny, since I had almost forgotten about the whole thing until this guy recounted the event in the most hilarious manner possible.

As much as it saddens me to say this, the semester’s soon coming to a close, and there are a staggering TWO weeks of classes remaining. Finals begin at the end of November, and I’m already beginning to brace myself for the culture shock I’ll probably experience upon returning to Babylon… err… I mean, the States. I’ve still got about 6 weeks left, so I suppose it’s still too early to start getting all dramatic. Knowing how I am, I’m sure I will soon though.

Halfway through...? Already?

In two months I'll be back in the States. We won't dwell on that sobering fact now, though... On a more positive note, this weekend was definitely one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable ones I’ve had in Ghana thus far. On Friday, I finally made it to a recording studio and laid down a couple of verses. A month or so back, I met a local MC named El. He’s part of an up-and-coming hip-hop crew called the Skillions that seems to be pretty popular here in Accra. I gave him a CD and he must have liked what he heard, because he called me up this week to ask if I’d drop a verse on his mixtape. I ended up driving over with Jason a couple of my friends from Legon. It was a great recording setup, and the guy I collaborated with is a really talented artist too. My friend from Legon Julian (who’s car we drove over in) is a producer as well, so Jason, El and I decided to rap to one of his verses on the spot too. It came out pretty hot, if I do say so myself.

This foray into the Ghana hip-hop scene was more fruitful than my recording attempt last weekend. On that unfortunate day, I drove for 30 minutes, waited an hour and a half to enter the studio, and was greeted by a power outage as SOON as I stepped in the booth. We tried to wait it out, but after another hour of watching the chickens scratch at the dirt road in front of the studio, we decided we’d take a rain check on the studio time. One thing the experience did teach me is that my patience has been significantly enhanced since I’ve been here. I mean, to drive for a while, wait another 90 minutes, and to watch the lights go out moments before I’m set to record… In the States I’m sure most people would be a bit more than peeved that their valuable time had been wasted. (“Do you know how many Facebook profiles I could have looked at in the last hour?!?!” “What about all of the TV commercials I missed?!?!”) We just laughed the experience off, and I spent the rest of the hot day enjoying myself with friends off campus. But I digress…

The session this past Friday afternoon went well, but I had to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for my 5:45 departure time the next morning. Ten of us international students in ISH decided to take a trip up to Dagbe, a cultural resort in the Volta Region. Located in the town of Aflao, the village isn’t too far from the Togo border, and it was a refreshing change from the city life in Accra. Of course, getting out of the city would turn out to be an adventure in itself. First, we missed the 6:30 bus leaving from Accra by about 5 minutes, so we got first dibs on the next bus leaving three hours later. Three turned out to be the magic number of the day, as our bus broke down that many times until a replacement came. Without interruption, the trip is supposed to take three hours, but we ended up getting there around 2:30. But as I said before, my patience here has reached unprecedented thresholds, and even when I saw smoke billowing out of our bus’ engine while sweat pored down my brow, I was barely perturbed.

Anyway, for 45 Ghana cedis a night (approx. $50 USD) visitors get a room in a guesthouse, three meals a day, and private classes from members of the village. These classes include basket weaving, kente weaving, cooking, traditional dance, and drumming. I was lucky enough to attend dance classes followed by drumming on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. The whole package was especially pleasant since our party was the only visiting group in the village at the time. These classes were amazing, and in addition to getting the best workout I’ve had in months, I felt more connected to my heritage than I ever have before. From the opening ceremony of libation pouring to the intense routines we memorized, I maintained a special feeling that I hadn’t yet experienced here in Ghana. Anyone who knows me well understands that I absolutely love music for a lot of reasons, but I have to say the musical experience I had in Dagbe was a lot different from switching on my iPod. The experience of pounding those drums, stomping my bare feet on ground, and rhythmically punching the air with clenched fists was more cathartic than words can describe. With each beat of the drum and step of the dance, I felt increasingly closer to a lost past that washed up on the shores of the Atlantic generations ago. Even the sweat pouring out of my pores felt like the release of a lifetime of cultural confusion and identity crisis. In a strange way, I had a sensation of physically purging myself of emotional and psychological baggage that I’ve been carrying for a long while. The intense physical experience helped me release the pressures (both externally and internally imposed) of double-consciousness and the Western hegemony that’s caused so much fragmentation throughout the Diaspora. While I’ve felt self-conscious about my appearance for some time in Ghana, my fair skin no longer felt like a burden. My American accent and Western dress no longer mattered. I was home. While the village I was in may not have been the residence of my direct ancestors, I know deep inside that this is the kind of place in which my roots reside. I had an overwhelming time dancing and drumming at Dagbe, but that was really only the beginning of my experience in the village.

After drumming class Saturday night, I showered quickly and got a chance to relax with my thoughts before dinner was served. I sat alone outside for a while, but soon I was joined by Gabriel (also known as Kwaku). He was one of the two elders who had poured out libations and spoken to the spirits of the village ancestors during the opening ceremony. As I often do with people here, I introduced myself as Kwame. (In addition to given names, most Ghanaians also take the name designated to the day of their birth. [i.e. Saturday born = Kwame.]) Although I can get by with conversational Twi at this point, my language skills were pretty useless here— the Volta region is home to the Ewe people who speak the language of the same name. Anyway, Gabriel knew enough English to have a conversation with me at the time, so I eagerly asked him the meaning of the prayers he had uttered earlier that day. He explained that he was paying homage to his father and various other members of the village who are no longer living. He explained that he always gives glory to those who came before him, even symbolically asking them to drink before he uses water to wash his face. Although his English was limited and quite deliberate, I was able to comprehend the significance of his Ewe prayer thanks to his explanation. Throughout our interaction, there was relative silence in the area, but as he finished his explanation, I heard the sound of a baby crying in the village. I often laugh at myself for finding meaning in most everything I experience, but the sound of wailing in the distance really did have a strange effect on me given the context of my conversation. There I was, a baby, sitting with an elder, paying homage and sharing the traditions of our ancestors. It took effort for me not to cry myself.

After dinner, I went into the village with a few friends. Our fellow exchange student Charles, a Canadian of West Indian descent, coordinated the trip and he actually went up a day early to join his old friends. See, much like myself, Charles came to Ghana for primarily cultural reasons. He’s been here since January and has spent a lot of time in the village, so we soon learned that Charles is treated like a regular member of the community. He took us around, and we found a large tent under which a group of children were gathered. (My lil' homie Selorm and his schoolmates are pictured above.) I’m sure they get visitors every now and then thanks to the resort, but most of the kids still seemed rather intrigued by our presence. I had a great chat with a few of the young boys, and gave some advice to a recent high school graduate who hopes to attend Legon in a year or so. Afterwards, Jason, Charles, and James (the village resident and master drummer who had played for us earlier) went to James’ home. It turns out Charles was actually staying in his home, and was making the most recent of many trips up there. We met a few people along the way, and the four of us connected in a way only brothers can. I suddenly realized in James’ home that we’re already halfway through the trip, and although I miss friends, family and certain creature comforts, I’m not that excited about leaving the Motherland. The next morning I didn’t really want to leave the village either, but by noon I found myself in a little van back to Legon. I’ll definitely go back to the village before I leave, and hopefully I’ll have more experiences that will help me make sense of the questions I’ve had racing through my mind. Until then, abusua, yebehyia bio. (See you later, family.)

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.

Making Moves on the Music Scene

It’s October. I had a feeling this would happen, but gradually time here seems to be moving faster. Anyway, since there's so much going on, I figured I'd write about something more specific this time around. I’ve actually started to make a few moves on the music scene recently, and things have moved pretty fast in the past week. Last week, Jason and I hit up Hypnotiq, the poetry lounge/café in town I mentioned in the last post. While Tuesdays have singing and poetry by candlelight, Thursdays are designated hip-hop nights. It was a really great time and I hadn’t had a cipher (freestyle session, for all of you non emcees) that serious in a long time.

Basically, a DJ brought his sound system through, and we passed the mic around for a while. My homie DK and his boy PY (they’re big on abbreviations here) co-host the event, so they were really generous with the mic. Although the place wasn’t too crowded at first, we ended up passing the mic around between about 10 or 15 rappers. By about 11:00, it was the group of us, the DJ, and only a handful of spectators. We did a lot of impromptu flowing, and even did a routine where we’d each rap 8 bars of a story and pass the mic to the next guy to continue. I hadn’t freestyled extensively in a long time, but somehow I zoned out that night and ended up having my “Rain Man” moment.

The majority of us were rapping in English, but we had one or two dudes bust into Twi, and a few Rastafarians in the house did some melodic flowing a la Shabba Ranks or Bounty Killa. Jason had to leave early to get some rest for his early Friday class, but I stuck around after the freestyle session for the performance segments. I actually ended up performing “The Quest”, a track I hadn’t done live in a long time, but it was received pretty well by the house. Needless to say, it was a blast, and I even sold a couple of CD’s while I was there. After I finishing performing, I was approached by the the house disc jockey DJ Vision, and it turned out he also works on a local FM hip-hop radio station. (He and Trigmatic, the host of the show, are pictured in the studio above.) He said he really liked my rapping, and actually invited me to an in-studio interview with him the following Saturday. He said it would be cool if Jason (a.k.a. Spanky) rolled too, so we ended up making our big radio debut that Saturday.

From 10-12 last Saturday, you could have enjoyed the sounds of Vocab & Spanky on 91.9, Vibe FM, here in Ghana. We played a couple of tracks from my latest album, (which I’m SURE you’ve downloaded by now…) kicked a whole lot of freestyles, and even took a bunch of callers. The folks who called in like the music, and everyone in the studio received our stuff really positively. The radio station seems to be popular, and even after about of half hour of talking to guys on the phone, we still couldn’t get through to all of our callers. At the end of the night, we were invited back to the show by the hosts, so hopefully we’ll be live again in another few weeks. My boy DK (the host of open mic night's @ Hypnotiq) is also a poet/MC, and we're talking about collaborating with lyrics and production. Always something in the works, ya know!

We had a lot fun the rest of the weekend too, since we got to go to our program coordinator’s house for a delicious buffet dinner on Sunday. We also made it to a local beach Sunday night with a few of our boys from campus. Since my homie Trigga is the big man on campus (and in the city, for that matter), we didn’t have to pay to enter a really cool club right on the beach.

The only issue I have so far is that there’s almost too much to do locally. There a SO many things we can do if we travel outside of the city, but we haven’t experienced too much besides our trips to Kumasi and Cape Coast. With that said, I’m making a concerted effort to get off campus and out of the city most of our remaining weekends. There are a lot of really interesting trips in store for us in the 11 weeks we have left here, so I’m most definitely trying to take advantage of all of the opportunities I can. We’ll see how things go.