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by AIGERIM SAPAROVA
ALMIGHTY AWULA : ANBULEY
It isn’t often you hear a millennia-old language sprung across a backdrop of cold electronic beats. Lucky for us ANBULEY, the Vienna-born Ghanaian music maker, blends hard electronica with her native Ga language [spoken throughout greater Accra].
She gets the Ga from her grandma. Remixing language lessons over European dance music and talking drums just sounds right. Anbuley also incorporates elements of Angolan kuduro and South African kwaito into her melodies and has collaborated with producers Bert on Beats, Ku Bo and Atropolis just to name a few. Experimenting across geographic and cultural borders, Anbuley keeps her identity music alive, abundant and addictive.
Chale, Black stars are doing their tinz all over the globe.
ANBULEY via Aslaugok
Get a taste of ANBULEY’s Ga riddims below:
M33BA
This video is Anbuley’s most recent creation. “M33ba” is Ga for “Why?” Flashing futuristic symbols and twisted traditional motifs decorate a dark screen as a dancing Anbuley sings of unbalanced global power relations that determine African lives. She calls for a plan that will ensure a brighter and happier future for African peoples.
Oleee
If you think that this video doesn’t shout “GHANA!” then maybe you’ve sipped too much palm wine. The red, yellow and green colors of Ghana print the video marking Anbuley’s national pride. In Ga, “Oleee” means “Don’t you know?”
Here Anbuley shares her revelation of love and its limits from personal experiences. She croons into the camera, “I’m not going to let you play those games with me anymore…beautiful gentlemen, don’t bother me no more.” [translation] You don’t want to mess with a woman who’s made up her mind.
Kemo’ Yee Keke
Anbuley goes a step further with this track that’s all about female self-realization. The punching lyrics contrast with the delicate ballerina costume that Anbuley rocks in the video. “Kemo’ Yee Keke” means “Just say yes” in Ga.
In a recent interview with TropicalBass, Anbuley reveals that the track “is about oppression. You often meet people in your life who want you to say yes to everything. The lyrics are about a man who tried to oppress me. What an idiot!”
Suomo
“Suomo” translates into “Love.” Anbuley speaks of the intensity of a romance between her and an unnamed lover. The video is psychedelic, colorful groovy and strangely reminiscent of Austin Powers. Anbuley could easily be one of the beautiful babes that takes on any international man of mystery.
Keep up your Ga lessons with ANBULEY right here.
ACCRA [dot] ALT Radio 
In about 100 years or sooner she could spawn another language which would be a fusion of bits of Ga and her foreign sensibilities and accent. I’m a native Ga speaker and I’m struggling to make sense of her song “M33ba”. First of all the word is “Maaba” and second the rest of her lyrics just melt away in my ears with no meaning.
But over all my alt spirit ignores all of this and just gets into the music. Hell I don’t understand 40% of most American rap music but if the music is good, that’s all that matters.
“M33ba” is actually the original pronunciation for “Why” in GA- Words like ‘where” which most people will pronunce “Nigb3” is actually “N33gb3”. Anbuley writes by translating authentic GA into English- and yes sometimes the nuance is lost in translation but the important thing here is to recognize how this artist has interfaced a West African language with digital sound. Maybe the conversation should be about exploring this language and sound mutation and how its shaping and creating new identities for people of African decent.
late reply sorry. Do you know how you get pissed off hearing Dickensian English in some of our movie dialogues? That formed the basis of my comment. Music lyrics should mimic dialogue I think, so I don’t want to hear written Ga in music. Makes it harder to relate to and jam to, to some extent. But I get where you are coming from; may be I should become more open to linguistic experiments of this kind. I listen to too much low brow music.
Awesome article.
Good article. Who designed the rings?