STELOO + YAW P Ride a New House Wave

by Aigerim Saparova + Sionne Neely | photos by Mantse Aryeequaye

BADBOY STELOO + YAW P chill in Ga Mashie | photo by Mantse Aryeequaye

To be totally frank, Ghana’s music identity is experiencing a sort of puberty – an awkward growing state on the verge of a uniquely full-fledged confidence. The country’s sonic youth are flipping through radio and TV stations, smartphone apps and digital downloads to hear the latest and greatest West African bass music from Ghana’s urban centers and Naija, U.K. grime and dub step from the U.K. and the U.S. hip hop pop sound, among others. Ironically, gospel highlife pop music is tuning the ears + pockets of most Ghanaians, including young folks who make up a swelling majority of the country’s Christian congregations.

ANBULEY’S Abracadabra

Ghanaian-Austrian singer ANBULEY has the European beat blogs sipping her blueberry kool-aid. The singer has been conjuring dance floor magic with her Afro-Electronica anthems over the past couple of years. Vintage soul, pop vigor, gutter funk, and electric purple synths make a sweet brew.

Blending the old school Ga she learned from her grandmother and the European dance music she grew up with on the club scene, Anbuley’s hot kelewele jams will keep you in a good sweat. In addition to music and dance, (peep her quick-footed shuffle in Kemo’ Yoo Keke) Anbuley is also a damn beautiful performance artist.

Check out Anbuley’s iconography below along with excerpts from an interview with Marflix of Tropical Bass earlier this year:

I am born in Vienna. My father is from Ghana and went to Vienna to study. We moved to Ghana when I was four years old and stayed there another five years. It didn’t work out in Ghana as planned and we came back to Vienna.

I have always been Ghanaian and I also grew up in that mindstate. I had no Austrian passport that time because our plan was to go back to Ghana. Later when it became clear that we stay in Vienna I became Austrian citizen.

Anbuley x Isabella Meus

For me it is kinda funny because I was Ghanaian most of the time, but not all the time and also I am born in Vienna. Basically it doesn’t matter, I am both and I enjoy both sides – I feel generously gifted. On the other hand I would never call myself a Viennese – even if I talk Vienna slang. I look like a Ghanaian and perhaps I’m Afro-Viennese – but people wouldn’t understand that anyway.

Anbuley x Isabella Meus

The track ‘Kemo’ Yoo Keke’ – just say yes – 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.

That’s why I don’t want to explain it anymore. If people want to see me as Viennese, okay then – but I do not feel like that. In Ghana are my roots, my mother and my father are Ghanaian.

Anbuley x Isabella Meus

I sing about topics which move me and occupy my mind – that could be also fashion or shoes, not necessarily big issues.

You can’t make music if you don’t feel like that, people will hear it when it’s faked. Look at me – I am a stranger at first glance, that’s why I don’t feel like home.

Anbuley x Isabella Meus

I’m born into the European club music, so I am both – and doing Ghanaian music wouldn’t be me. I fly to Ghana soon and I hope to meet many people there.

In the end it must happen spontaneous, cause I can only work with people I like, and that can’t be planned.

GATO PRETO: Tropical Bass BeatDown

GATO PRETO: LEE BASS + CARMEN BROWN

GATO PRETO is one black cat you won’t mind crossing paths.

Their masked mystique is the music – a tropical bass thunderstorm of candy rain and sound clouds. The duo – producer Lee Bass and rapper/singer Carmen Brown aka Gata Misteriosa – unveil the African music paradise reflecting their roots in the polyrhythm of Bass’ Ghana and the Portuguese slang of Brown’s Mozambique. Brown also grew into her rhyme scheme on the Portugal club scene. She told Funkhauseuropa in July, “It’s very important in music that you have the freedom to express yourself and find your own language.”

Such freedom reaps a hypersonic wave – a mix of old skool sweet/ thick R+B synths; delicate Highlife strings; infectious 80’s video game pop rock; back bending Miami bass; and an ATL freaknik beat parade with hi-def kicks of kuduro.

Download the “Voodoo Drums Mixtape” for free:

Based in Germany, Brown shares about Gato Preto’s sound: “We are saying something about bad systems, corruption, things are not really working in this world so we just want to speak it out. The other point is we want to dance. A lot!”

For more, check out GATO PRETO’s flava in “Tschukudu”: