Inhale...Exhale

 It has been a week now since our former president passed, it was exactly at 2:15pm at the 37 Military Hospital in Ghana. Today, at that exact time, a minute will be dedicated to him and I hope people respect and recognize it. You might read this post after that period anyway. I have not posted in a while, well, a couple of days and I wonder why. I started this whole blogging thing with ‘vim’ and now vim is dying. I am just being lazy and I have to sit on my ass and be doing this more frequently or maybe because I am sick? May John Evans Atta Mills rest in peace.

I went to a party on Friday and I realized something, before I  go my ‘realization’, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you all that I am not a night club person. Until I have something serious to do there, I don’t go clubbing because of the smoke. It gets me sick all the time and I’m talking about smoke from cigarettes. When I heard the government had passed a law about 2 weeks ago to ban smoking in public places, I was like ‘yes!!’… This is something that should have been enforced a long time ago, I mean, I am not against smoking but don’t do it around people. Not everyone out there smokes and I’m sure some who smoke don’t even want to inhale smoke from others. Anyway, the government passed that law so no smoking in public places, Amen to that.

I’m sure that ‘Amen’ wouldn’t work because people still smoke in public places. I realized this when I went to the party on Friday. It was so bad I had to leave there early. People were smoking left, right like there was no law at all. Or I didn’t hear well or these people are not aware. Maybe the club owner too is not aware. Yes the party was in a night club. I was so confused so I asked a friend of mine who was smoking if he had heard about the ban on smoking ‘thingy’, he pulled a puff, blew it in my face and was like, ‘yeah, e be bad oo!!’ I think I know the problem here, it’s a funny one though but still….i think people think the ‘public’ there means outside, like on the streets etc. since you are in a building(night club) then it’s cool to smoke. What other reason can I give here?

Please there is a ban on smoking in public so don’t do it, and public here includes night clubs, pubs, lounges, schools, and everywhere public. Smoke in your homes please. But I am wondering what the penalty is if you are caught smoking in public? Jail term or just some small fine? Knowing these people, this will be another avenue where small tips(bribes) will be given to those who will be responsible to check that people don’t smoke in public. Hmmm!!! Anyway, I promised to keep this post short. More vim to you and yours and remember the dead in your prayers.

Faint Medal

 My heart goes out to the family of former president John Evans Atta Mills, especially to his wife, Mrs. Naadu Mills. Death is just mean!! I am still shocked at his death anyway but life should go on and death should not hold any of us back.  My post is not about death, neither is it about the life and times of our late president, it is about a band, an afro-rock band that I came in contact with some months ago.

I have known Kyekyeku for a while now, we have shared several stages and he has even backed me with his guitar so many times. Syn, the vocalist of this band has that voice that cuts through the atmosphere with agility and you would want to hear him sing over and over again after the first. There are other solid members of the band, names are not ‘handy’ at the moment and together they form Faint Medal, an afro-rock band.

I don’t know how they came up with that name, I think I heard Syn break that down sometime back but I was not paying attention. After hearing this band play, the meaning of their name will be a secondary matter because they are that solid. Anytime I watch or listen to them, my mind goes to Osibisa or Aerosmith, and no I am not comparing, I’m just talking about how I forget my worries and all when I hear them play.

The first time I saw them play was at Indie Fuse 2011, I was the host and also the performer on that day. I had heard their first single I Dey Feel You Die which featured Yaa Pono, a Pidgen Music label mate but watching them perform was another story altogether . The energy they transmit to their audience is awesome and during their performance on that day, I never saw anyone in the crowd sit. Maybe that ‘apachi’, who was in his seat throwing his hands rhythmically and also singing along.

I have watched them closely since that day, watched them perform on several stages and they always steal the show. I never thought that Ghana would ever have a rock band and this shows how people especially the youth are breaking away from the ‘normal’. Ghanaians like to copy, they love to follow, they hate to create and they hate challenges, these are what I have realized over the years so this afro-rock band comes as a surprise.

 Faint Medal had a show at the Hush Lounge on the 21^st of July 2012 and I watched them perform 16 songs back to back, one this I loved about that show was how they engaged the crowd and how everything was intimate.  I am already looking forward to their next show because I want more of that energy, more of those solid tunes.

listen to their first single, I Dey Feel You Die here

I will be recording with Syn soon and that will be awesome!!

Madiba

Sometimes you have so many things to post about and when you finally sit behind the pc, you don’t know what to post about. I don’t know if I am the only person who experiences this but I hope it’s a normal thing. Anyway, thanks for reading and I pray that you come back because I have so many things to post about. Both bad and good stuff so keep on coming.

I want to send a big echo to Nelson Mandela for celebrating his 94^th birthday on the 18^th of July, 2012. I always wonder when his name pops up in convos and when I come across his name on the internet or where ever. This is a true icon, you know. He helped fight apartheid in South Africa (if you don’t know what apartheid is, then stop reading this post), went to jail for over 2 decades, came out of jail and became the president of South Africa. How is this possible from a single man? I remember, when I turned 27, i was like ‘so Mandela was in prison for this long? 27 whole years, my friends!! I mean how?!!

Anyway, Madiba is a man you should look up to if you are that kind who looks up to people. You will be on the right path if he is your mentor etc. Now, with this life that we live now, how many of us can live for that long? Have you thought of that? Do you think of death sometimes? Well, I do think about that sometimes, especially when I am sick and all that. No matter what I do, I will die! But won’t it be better when we know when we are going to leave? It’s good and fun to grow old and I know this because I lived with my grandma all my life… well, until she died in 2005. I saw her smile at her grandchildren, I hear her express her love for her kids and she always talked about how she suffered to raise all of those kids…she said, it was her turn to enjoy and I know she did enjoy before she passed.

With this life that we live, are we going to get old one day? And when I say old, like past age 50. Our minds are filled with all sorts of wrongs so I keep on wondering. Well, if you ask me, I do want to grow old one day and see my grandchildren and all but is that even possible? We don’t even eat right and we don’t watch what we eat. For the past 4 years or so, I have lost so many peers and they keep on passing. I have a funeral this weekend and it keeps on coming. Is it supposed to be so? Instead of working for our own betterment we concentrate on the person we are going to have sex with next. Is this life? I really want to talk extensively about all these and I promise you that they will come in subsequent posts.

This post is dedicated to Nelson Mandela and I am not even going to waste paper space talking about what he did and didn’t do, it’s all on the internet like this post so search. He will be in my heart forever and I pray that we all look up to him and not rap stars. Ah, but wait, what is the story behind Mandela and Naomi Campbell?

HIV Prevention Cream

Finally, it is here!! You can now have unprotected sex with a person affected with HIV and still not get or give virus. Finally we can enjoy sex without any worries, like when the condom you are using gets broken during the act or when you finally decide to take condom off so you enjoy each other well well, skin to skin. I am wondering why it took long for this to come around, did they have it all along and just wanted us to suffer? These people!!!

It’s a cream called Zinziny and it has been tested by the Health body for the past six months and it works, 100%, no hitches. Zinziny is a cream for men, and it is to be applied on the penis, five minutes before sex, with emphasis on the head of the penis. One just has to ensure that a little amount enters the meatus and that is it. Apparently, this works as a resistance and it has some chemicals that fights and kills the virus which is transmitted subliminally during sex.

My argument is this, why did they keep so long to put this out? I know these people; they waited for this long so we can carry this disease on our heads for some time. This is not right? Anyway, it’s finally here so man is not going to use condoms anymore, sex can finally be exciting!! The company responsible for this should be awarded, charley. I am saying this because most of my friends hate condoms, who doesn’t like ‘raw’? Sometimes we want to know how wet and how our partners feel but the condom!! Zinziny will start selling at the end of this month and the surprising thing is that, it’s going to be cheap it’s going for $2 and I hope it reaches Ghana fast. Most of the times, drugs like this are so expensive so this comes as a surprise. I think I am going to be the first to get this when it arrives in Ghana. I am excited!

I was talking with Rudolf, @simpol_tinz, Adwoa and Galileo about sex yesterday and I told this lie, but they believed me. Glen knows how I look when I lie so I was finally caught. What a shame. Please there is no cream like that, thank you!

Sarkodie's BET Award

 Hey! Charley I know I have been dull with this blog of mine, I am suppose to be posting every day. That is a personal promise I made when I started with this blog. Anyway, last week was very eventful, especially on Friday. I heard they have passed the law finally in Ghana. You can’t talk on your phone whilst driving; they said you can’t even use any headset at all and you always have to ensure you are wearing your seat belts. Failure will attract a fine and even a jail term. If you ask me, I think this is in the right direction but will these work in GHANA? The police like ‘bribe’ too much. Okada too has been banned!

Well, that is not what I want to talk about today, so let’s leave that for another day. Like I said earlier, last week was so eventful; one of the major activities that went on was the BET Award 2012 in America. I have been watching this award ceremony for time, I don’t recall watching any LIVE though because I don’t have cable, never had cable, so I always have to wait for the recorded tape from friends.

Yesterday, I had the chance to watch it with a friend and even before that, the internet gave me info about what actually went on, especially with our Ghanaian nominee, Sarkodie (What Else, To All My Hunnies On The Block). I really think that awarding him backstage was nonsense, it was yawa kraa!! I mean how? I am aware that some awards were given backstage and all, but Sarkodie is an international act, I mean INTERNATIONAL!! You make a young soul fly several miles across the ocean, in a plane to America only to give him a plaque backstage? What do you take us for, BET? But I blame Ghanaians, we have allowed all this to happen to us. We kowtow to anything that is International-‘BET is coming to Ghana, yaaaaay!!!!’.. We don’t sit back and even relax small kraa to think about what is on the table or what has gone on before, since it is international, it means it’s good. Yawa!!

Artists from Ghana are hungry for international recognition but are not ready to put out good works, all they want to say is, ‘I have been here and there!’ but you are putting out two by four music. We should sit back and work on our art and just see how these ‘INTERNATIONAL’ people will treat us. Let’s just try and see. They should have given Sarkodie some shine, he should have come on stage to ‘recite’ his acceptance speech for Jay Z etc to see him.*what else?*.okay, so I am thinking, what does INTERNATIONAL mean to BET? You see, only America is international to them and I would be grateful and very glad if we Ghanaians ditch these awards for some time. See how we treat international stars when they come to Ghana, do we get the same when we are outside? Kai!!

Watching the BET last nigh,t I was sad, confused and excited at the same time. I was sad because of my country Ghana, confused because you couldn’t tell if they were miming or not, but they were not miming and excited because I was watching something that was pleasing, beautiful. When is Ghana migrating from those plywood stages? I mean, haven’t we done that for long? Can’t we go a step ahead? Do people always have to walk from backstage and eventually fall because a carpet wasn’t laid well? When are we going to switch from using those 3 or 4 coloured bulbs and use better lightening system? I feel sad when people are all hyper when a concert/show/GMAs is coming up, you are not going to see anything different from the previous one. The same!! Artist come and mime to their songs and most of them don’t even mime right? When you ask why they mime, they will tell you how microphones fail in Ghana. Is this supposed to happen?

This post is getting long, I talk too much… but I hope things are checked for our own good. The entertainment industry is messy here and that is why BET do we yawa!!

New Spoken Word Track From Me!!!!

 So a guy who has been following me on twitter contacted me and said he had a beat for me. One that is fit for spoken word so I said cool. He sent me the first sample and we started working on it together. The final product was awesome so I told him I would write something to it and let him know. This man is Michael Awua Mensah and on twitter he is @Toxiq_OnDaBeatz.

When I received the beat, I just listened to it once and that was it, it was after a week that I went back to it and paid close attention so I started writing to it and honestly, I didn’t love the final product so I cancelled everything. One Thursday, I was told that I had a studio session in the evening by @showele so I went back to the beat, picked a pen and started writing something new. I didnt know what I was writing until about the forth line. I wrote the last four lines at the studio and I invited Amy Ama over to sing the hook. She did a great job.

So without talking plenty, you can download and listen to UTOPIA MAYBE here. Enjoy!!!