Information reaching BEATWAVES indicates that popular Gospel singer, Rev. Esther Smith has parted ways with her husband of four years, Rev. Ahinkan Bonsu, a pastor at Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

This followed claims that she had given her newly born baby with the pastor to another man in faraway Germany, where she was now staying.

According to sources close to the singer, if the man, whose identity was not disclosed, adopted the child, it would make things easier for Esther Smith as regards securing documents for her continued stay in Germany.

Weeks ago, the 2003 Gospel Artiste of the Year’s family returned the bride price and all items used in performing her customary rites to the pastor.

Telling his story on Channel R, an Accra-based radio station, Pastor Ahinkan explained that in December last year, the singer and other musicians such as Grace Ashie and Kweku Gyasi were invited by one Odefou, for a show in Holland.

Esther, who was then four months pregnant, traveled to Holland without informing him, due to a misunderstanding they had over her latest music video with Morris Babyface.

He said after leaving Ghana, Esther did not contact him until he called the man who invited them.

“Later, I had this information that Esther has moved from Holland to Germany and had given her pregnancy to another man there with the view to getting documents to facilitate her stay there.”

To be sure, Pastor Ahinkan said he called to enquire from the man who invited his wife to Holland “who confirmed Esther had moved to join another man in Germany.”

According to the Pastor, Esther Smith gave birth to his baby, and went on to name the child Bright Luciano Smith Bonsu at an out-dooring ceremony at a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church in Germany without informing him.

He said he reported the incident to their marriage counselors, and when Esther’s family was contacted, they heaped insults on the counselors saying “they can not show Esther what to do with her life”.

Two weeks ago, he said he had a call from his mother that Esther’s family had come to dissolve their 4-year marriage.

“Where we’ve got to we cannot hide the truth. It is about four years now that I married Esther. Since then I have not had any peace.”

Before her trip in December, he said, Esther persistently heaped insults on him and his family calling them poor witches.

The pastor, who claimed he wrote most of Esther’s popular songs, said he suspected his wife of having extra-marital affairs before this incident even cropped up.

BEATWAVES’ efforts to get Esther’s version of the story proved futile.

He is being touted as hiplife’s latest sensation and the opportunity is available at the Boomerang Nite Club this Saturday from 8.00pm for all to assess whether Nana Wiafe Asante Mensah, also known as ASEM, deserves all the attention he is beginning to get.

ASEM’s appearance at the Boomerang is actually in connection with the launch party being organised by Black Star Television in collaboration with Creative Storm for the newest lifestyle product on the market, Fontv.

Any astute follower of the popular music scene in Ghana would know by now that ASEM is a star in the making whose music is gradually beginning to entrench him in the urban sections of the country.

The young man who hails from Kwawu Atibie in the Eastern Region, mentions K.K. Kabobo, Reggie Rockstone, Kris Kross and Ludacris as some of the artistes that inspire him but he is slowly building his own image as a strong lyricist and rapper.

Creative Storm is responsible for content for Fontv and the multimedia compony’s CEO, Kwesi Owusu, says the launch party featuring Asem will be filmed for later transmission on Fontv which was officially launched onto the Ghanaian market recently.

“Fontv is fascinating digital television on your mobile phone and it has 18 hours of varied programming daily,” said Kwesi Owusu in an interview with Showbiz.

“As content providers, our aim is to produce exciting television that has intersting and beneficial content. We have already started building up programmes that support and help the music and entertainment industry in this country.”

Owusu said local artistes do not need to pay any money to Fontv to have their videos aired. Their videos will go air free of charge if they are of good quality.

He said the buzz in town is that ASEM is the latest hiplife kid on the block and is causing a lot of excitement. The idea then is to put him out on Fontv as part of the process to attain interesting local content.

He said the Boomerang bash on Saturday is to pouplarise the Fontv content for people to get a sense of what programmes are on offer and also to bring artistes together to see Fontv as an exciting media which they can use to their advantage.

According to Owusu, various artistes will be featured and filmed at Boomerang to add to the Fontv menu. He added that all the artistes contacted so far about getting thair material shown on Fontv have been very receptive and lots of videos are already coming in for consideration.

“We have been playing something on Kwaw Kesse on Fontv since Monday. It is interesting, it is good and can stand side by side with any video you can find in New York or anywhere else. What we are doing is putting Ghanaian culture on at par with any culture from anywhere else. ”

There is also a documentary slot within the Fontv programming called Tribute and the artiste being featured this week is Lucky Dube.

“We intend to extend this section to living artistes as well, not just those dead and gone. So there are plans to include Reggie Rockstone, Ambulley, Jerry Hansen and others,” Owusu told Showbiz.

“We do not want to just show videos. We try to get people to understand the artistes they see on television. We want to try and get the artiste across in terms of their character, what they like and what inspires them. I think that creates better interaction between atistes and audience.”

Ibrahim Adjei, Corporate Affairs Manager for Fontv also said Fontv is about exciting communication and that is why popular music has been slated to play a big role in the programming.

“The pretty Fontv Girls will also be at the Boomerang launch party to demonstrate the excitement of Fontv and I invite everyone to be at Boomerang this Saturday for an exciting time,”

A street carnival has marked the launch of a National Brass Band competition at Agona Swedru in the Central Region of Ghana.

Music performances by three brass band groups from Swedru, Winneba and Agona Kwanyako lighted up the spirits of the people in the streets and brought back some good memories.

The event last Thursday was heavily patronised by both the youth and the elderly of the Swedru township who found in it an opportunity to satisfy their craving for this type of music which they used to be fond of but which has been dying gradually.

In time past, Brass Band music featured prominently in social gatherings such as church festivities and funerals.
The Swedru Brass band and other such bands which was mainly responsible for such performances in the township have lately changed their music style.

They now prefer to play highlife music using guitars and other instruments that are used by dance band groups to the disadvantage of the wind instruments of brass bands.

What happened at the launch of the National Brass competition last Thursday was a statement by the people that they still cherish their brass band music which sometime ago enabled them dance to their local ‘Adaha’ and traditional styles of dancing.

Originally, the street carnival was meant as a procession for the three brass bands and some masqueraders from Winneba, Kwanyako and Agona Swedru, but as the bands started playing, scores of Swedru youth joined the masqueraders in dancing to cover a distance of over one kilometre from their starting point to the main lorry station where the event was held.

Free drinks at the venue did not help the situation when the procession got to its final destination, the launching grounds.

The Kasapreko group who co-sponsored the event with Dateline Marketng Company had enough drinks for anybody who cared, the youth and especially the porters group from the Swedru market threw generous shots of “Alomo” and the latest brand of the company “Cocoa Liqueur” down their throats, there was no stopping for them as they virtually remained glued to the spacious floor of the launching ground.

Other groups who joined the dancing fray to make the occassion grand were the hair-dressers association, the market women and other women’s groups.

Launching the festival, Mr. S K Boafo, Minister for Chieftancy and Culture said brass band groups will now be encouraged and nurtured into holding annual festivals as an event tourism to draw people from other countries to come and watch. The programme is also intended to promote local tourism.

He said even though brass band was a relic of our colonial past it has been adapted and integrated into our culture in a way that it has become authentically Ghanaian to the admiration of the people who brought it.

The Chieftancy and Culture Minister said the time had come to put everything we have to good use by making them useful in our national development agenda.

The event attracted a good representation of VIPs which included Messrs Joe Aggrey, former Deputy Minister of Sports, Samuel Obodai, MP for Agona West, Ben Mensah, Municipal Chief Executive of Agona and Nana Kobina Botwe II Chief of Agona Swedru.

Brass band music was introduced into the Gold Coast by the British Colonial Administration during the Second World War. It was used for military parades to ensure the alertness of the troops to prosecute the war.

Some of the indigenous people who found themselves in regimental bands learnt to play foreign dance tunes to entertain the white officers at their club house and later used the brass band instruments to play indiginous music forms like “Adaha,” “Konkoma”and and highlife.

The National Brass Band competition is slated for June 5 at the Swedru Sports Stadium and is organised by Dateline Marketing Company.

It may be difficult for some people to figure out how they can love a person and at the same time not like the fellow. That is, however, no problem at all for Okyeame Kwame and he boldly states it on the tracks Medo Mmaa Nanso Mempe Mmaa, which appears on his new collection of songs called M’awensem, which translates as ‘My Poetry’ in English.

Kwame introduces the song in stanzas indicating how he has girlfriends in various locations like Kumasi, Nsawam, Koforidua, Accra, London and New York.

He describes the girls as being short, tall, fair and dark with names such as Adwoa, Akua, Afua, Abena, Maa Yaa, Akos, Adiza, Abiba and Memuna.

His problem is that he loves them all but does not like them and that the girls love him but are irritating.

He refers, for instance, to one of them at Bantama in Kumasi as someone who speaks very good Fante and another, a student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) who was a ‘Dada ba’ and another at Krofrom also in Kumasi who is also being courted by four ‘bogas’.

He says even though the ‘bogas’ own luxurious cars, the girl prefers to drive in a taxi with him (Kwame).
So is this the real lifestyle of Okyeame Kwame?

“No, I have time and patience for pampering women, but the aim is not to end up in bed with them”, Okyeame Kwame explained in an interview with the Graphic Showbiz in Kumasi.

He said his idea for the song was to try and show the lifestyles of some guys when it comes to women but on top of it all, “my idea was to induce humour.”

He said he decided to name his new album ‘My Poetry’ because he thinks rap is nothing but ‘poetry in motion’ and that the album is the “deepest thing I’ve done so far.”

Other songs on the album are Kwame Ghana, Mmere, Odo Nkyen, Anaa, Woso, Odo Wo Owuo Akyi, Woani Nso Anaa, Yentu nsuo mu and Tutu and all the songs on the album are done in stanzas just like how poems are written in stanzas.

Kwame Ghana talks about problems associated with chieftaincy in Ghana, corruption in the entire society, brain drain and other societal problems.

It was rendered with acoustic guitar accompaniment featuring George Sprazz, a Teaching Assistant working with Agya Koo Nimo at KNUST.

Mmere featuring Kwabena Kwabena talks about how Okyeame Kwame would have preferred to live his life if he had the opportunity to turn back the hands of time.

Politically, he said, he would have advised Nana Kwamena Ansah, the chief of Elmina during whose reign Europeans first docked on the shores of this country, that they were going to turn us into slaves so they should not be entertained.

He said he would also have advised Okomfo Anokye to use the Golden Stool not only as a symbol of unity for Ashantis alone, but for all Ghanaians. Again he would have advised Dr Kwame Nkrumah that the American CIA was planning to overthrow him in order to dislodge his African unity ideas.

On Wani Nso Anaa which features Samini, Kwame talks about two lovers expressing their love for each other. Tutu features Kofi B and it talks about how people try to pull down colleagues making progress in life.

Woso, a dancehall rhythm, is becoming popular on campuses and in the night clubs. It talks about the day to day problems facing mankind and why the problems need to be put aside since crying about them do not necessarily bring about solutions.

Each song has a central theme and and a concept it addresses just as poems are used to address issues.

Okyeame Kwame explained that many people, especially the elderly, think that hip-life is an inferior art form and do not pay attention to rap music at all because it wasn’t started by the academia. To him, such people regard hip-life as ghetto or ‘drop out music’.

“My main motive here is to take the ghetto music and give it to the discerning. I decided to call the album ‘My Poetry’ so that people would perceive rap in the same light as they see poems as a useful forum for advice and entertainment.”

He said he is already making some progress on that front and revealed that KNUST selected his rap verse on the Akyeame song, Mesan Aba as a poem for the second-year literature class.

He said the latest album, produced by One Mic Entertainment, was done with Ghana in mind, but sebsequent ones would target other English-speaking African countries in the sub-region, with the rhythms crafted to appeal to Francophone countries as well.

Okyeame Kwame was born in 1976. He attended St. Joseph’s Experimental and Kumasi Anglican Secondary School (KASS) and is currently a level 200 student in Sociology and Akan at KNUST.

He explained he is in school again because he thinks knowledge is power. “Let’s find knowledge. I want to be an ambassador for people to go to school. People should not be scared but should go to school no matter how old they are. I stayed at home for 11 years after my sixth form education”.

He said he is studying Akan and Sociology because he feels he can’t help the poor if he is not one of them.

Okyeame Kwame has been a rapper since 1990 with Okyeame Quophi with whom he formed the Akyeame group.

According to him, they were performing rap competitions, entertainment shows at schools at a time that American music was very common in Ghana and everyone had to catch up with the hip hop fever.

Commenting on the music industry, Kwame said a lot of hip-life music is not reliable, affordable and available.

He indicated that the music is not reliable because it is not worthwhile buying a CD with just one nice song on it. It is not affordable because the production cost of a CD is less than one Ghana cedi but they are being sold at GH¢6. He says they are not available because the conventional distribution outlets in the country are very few.

“We should cut down on the greed and sell the CDs at GH¢2. We must distribute music like we distribute soap. We should take the music everywhere.”

For a word on his contribution to music Kwame proudly said: “People should acknowledge me for what I’m doing because when I stop, we’ll lose a soldier. Hip-life artistes should learn and read more about society.”

A Pan-African Bands Festival and Competition will form part of a five-day Pan-African cultural celebration to mark this year’s Africa Unity (AU) Day at the W.E.B DuBois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture in Accra.

AU Day is celebrated throughout the continent every year on May 25. A variety of artistes and bands have been lined up to mark the occasion alongside an art exhibition to be mounted by acclaimed Ghanaian and Nigerian artists.

Artistes and groups scheduled to perform at the Pan-African Bands Festival and Competition on May 24 from 2.00pm include the Abiza Band led by ace guitarist Ackablay, Felix Bell, Ras Ellis, Afro Queens International Band, Azonko, the Abrukusu Band led by Dr Aduonum, Swade led by Nii Alarbie, the Dynamic Melody Band and the Mighty I Am Band from Cape Coast.

May 25 from 4.00pm has been set aside for music recitals by Azonko & the Imaginary Orchestra as well as Kofi Agorsor & the Agorsor Band. Azonko plays the rat-trap cowbell, leg maracash, guitar and sings at the same time.

The highlight of his performance will be a rendition of excerpts from his Ghana’s Golden Orchestral Delights (GGOD) Volume 1 collection. The GGOD is a fusion of symphonic orchestration with indigenous African instruments and idioms.

The art exhibition is from May 22 to May 26 and will feature works by Kofi Agorsor from Ghana and Folusho Akomolade and Kolawole Ogunsunlade from Nigeria.

The AU Day celebration is being organised by the DuBois Centre in collaboration with Azonko Synchronisations Limited.
The DuBois Centre is a source of and a space for productive initiatives among continental Africans, Diaporians and all others who share Africa’s aspirations.

Guest of Honour for the whole celebration is Prof. Emeritus Kwabena Nketia.

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Many music lovers still have fond memories of the Ozimzim Band, which has become synonymous with Amarh Pino whose personality weighed heavily on the band.

Pino, who was a singer with the Mariotts Band but left to later make a big impression with his version of the sweet highlife song called Maria, is back from his long sojourn in the United Kingdom. So also is the band which has bounced back to life after being dormant due to Pino’s absence.

The band has been busy at rehearsal over the last few weeks to ensure that fans get exactly what they want when they come to listen to them at the Next Door Beach Resort at Teshie where they are now based.

Papa Slow, the proprietor of the venue, indicated that the band is all set to perform on the Sankofa Night at the Mojo Club of the resort from next Wednesday and every Wednesday.

He welcomed all to night club sessions on Fridays and Saturdays where music from the old school to the present day vibes are provided for patrons to enjoy.

In a chat with Pino, he told Showbiz that though the band’s forte is highlife, they would be treating patrons to a variety of music forms including, jazz, reggae, R&B and others and urged all the band’s fans to come dance with them next Wednesday.

Pino disclosed that he has a new album ready which would be launched very soon. He promised that those who would patronise the Sankofa Night shows would be previleged to sample some of the songs on the album before they are released.

The band is ready to accept engagements and those who needed their services could get in touch with them, he announced.

“We are ready for you so come dance with us at the Next Door Beach Resort’s Mojo Night Club,” he added.

As part of efforts to develop talents in the Ghanaian music industry, MaddHaus Incorporated, Ghana’s most prestigious record label, will organize a talent hunt dubbed, ‘MaddHaus Talent Hunt 2008’.

The event, which would be telecast live on TV on Saturdays, is targeted at molding the youth to become professional musical icons for the continent.

According to the vice president in charge of media relations and publicity, Obuobia Darko-Opoku, the event which would run for 13-weeks, would house all contestants and it is expected to bring together Ghanaian artistes close to their fans and the public to have in-depth knowledge about their favourite stars.

The public would be invited to play a crucial role in evictions through voting via SMS.

She told BEATWAVES that the musical talent aims to create possibilities for a new crop of talented singers, instrumentalists, and composers among others, whose music genres go beyond already established musical boundaries in the country, adding that all the contestants after auditioning would go through various activities, in and outdoors, which include packed shows for the duration of their stay.

She explained that the contestants would be grouped in the house and offered formal training in music and the use of musical instruments by music experts.

She disclosed that the first prize winner would take home GH¢3,000, brand new Kia Rio saloon car and, a year’s recording and management contract with MaddHaus.

The second prize winner takes home GH¢1,500, a year’s recording and management contract with MaddHaus and a home theatre, while the third prize winner goes home with GH¢1,000, home theatre and one year’s recording contract.

Obuobia Darko-Opoku said though people might want to vote for the most popular contestant, her outfit expects the public to vote for contestants with the most endowed talent to enable the producers sell the winner on the international market.

She disclosed that her outfit has already signed on music stars such as Tinny, Kwabena Kwabena, Samini, Bandana, King David, and Nana Quame among others on its label.

She said her organization would hereafter be responsible for producing, managing, packaging, marketing and promoting the artistes.

MaddHaus, which is headed by Livingstone Abani, has a state-of-the-arts recording studio with facilities that meet international standards.

Looks like there's lots of fun to be had the rest of this week, whether it's indoors or outdoors.

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