PUPPETS AND PUPPETEERS

We were all hungry for something. Houses, Sex, food, love, wealth, cars, dreams; whatever it was, we all had castles in the air we wanted to see built.
 

 Everyone  yearned and I yearned as much as they did. My life was one long starvation for my yearning and though I yearned as much as everyone did, smoked as much as everyone smoked, drank as much as everyone drank, was happy as much as everyone faked, I knew somewhere in the back of my drugged mind that death stared at us benignly. We were juicy fat, depressed pigs garnished for the kill. We did not care. We just laughed more, smoked more, had sex more, wept more. We yearned for life so much we lived centuries in a few days. 

Every now and then, one of us would stray into normalcy and be buried in a heap of life responsibilities, but with responsibilities came reality, and reality stared at you in the face each minute and screamed, “Go fucking die!” So they drifted back to insanity and us, and whispered things like, “I was trying to get that law degree” or “I was trying to get that promotion” or “I wanted to get married and settle down, you know?” Then they smoked and drank some more till they felt nothing. Till they felt death who held us to her bosom like her favourite children. She loved us so much she made us live. If only for a few months more.

We were that bunch that dreamed in ways that could never be achieved, dependent on our families for support but living like millionaires. We fucked men, women, and everything else in between. You couldn’t understand us. No one could understand us, products of a materialistic age that defined you by what you were able to acquire. Slaves we were to acquisition so much that when we were set free, we did not know what to do. 

Hope. Hope was the delusion of the minds of those who could not believe the ridiculousness of their lives so they hoped. They hoped with their sterling degrees and various honours they would find jobs. They hoped that their bosses would increase their paychecks. They hoped that they would save enough to buy a house. They hoped that they would have a nice, happy family and go golfing on weekends. And they hoped those things would make them happy. Happiness was a product to be bought in the black market and they could get it if they worked hard enough. They hoped and hoped and hoped in a system that had grabbed Hope by the neck, fucked her silly and thrown her to wolves where she died a slow painful death. But they still hoped.

We were beatniks of sorts, a resurgence of Hippies, Ghanaian style living wild and free, not just because we were young but also because we were prisoners.

Some of us sought some form of redemption, any form of redemption from this damned life. So we stumbled on religion. We believed fervently in a God that would cleanse us of our sins. We had to believe that we were sinners condemned to live a life of damnation unless Jesus Christ swooped down to save our asses. And all Jesus Christ wanted us to do was call him our Lord and personal savior? We could do that! We could definitely do that. I mean, who could believe the truth that our lives were damned for no reason at all and still be sane? Who could believe the truth that there was no hidden cause for our wretched lives and still have their heads screwed on? So we believed fanatically, if you may, that we had to be sinners, for eating some forbidden fruit in some utopian garden. Whatever it was we ate, we had to have done something to anger God. And for some time this gave us relief.

But Reality was Reality, and pastors became liars, reverends became politicians, and the Bible became cause for war. 

So we smoked some more, drank some more, had sex some more. A couple of us left suicidal notes and they became poetry to the distressed ears of those who chose to keep on living. 

Yet in our damnation, we were free.

We were the young adults of 2014.

Telling the African Woman's Story - Leila Djansi

"I want to continue telling stories that would change lives. In African culture, we don't talk. I keep saying the reason why Africans speak in proverbs is because we are not direct. So I just want to keep telling stories that allow people to talk." ~ Leila Djansi

Leila Djansi is one of the few film directors I admire. Why? Her stories. There is always a resonant note embedded in her films and the stories she chooses to tell. Being a writer as well, gives her especial power to share the African Woman's narrative in film in an industry that has largely ignored or is disinterested with those parts of the truth of human lives.  She is particularly interested in the African cultural nuances, thus weaves her stories around them and places them on the perfect platform for discussion, rumination and many times, debate. My two favourites have been Sinking Sands and Ties That bind. Both films tell the African Woman's story and the unique cultural influences that either alienate or embrace them. Issues she has raised for discussion in the past are marital rape (a problem many Ghanaian currently refuse to acknowledge can exist), domestic violence and childbirth.

She is currently working on a new web-series, Poisoned Bait, which explores marriage, and women in marriage, as nuanced by Ghana and Africa, and its ongoing transformation under the liberal pressures of the 21st Century.

In this interview, Leila Djansi talks about her work ethics, her writing process, being the only African in her class in the Savannah College of Art and Design, her creative choices and her secret dream to direct a James Bond movie!

Please click the link below for the interview:

Telling the African Woman's Story - Leila Djansi

CELEBRATING GHANAIAN WOMEN IN MUSIC - Eazzy & MzVee

 Being a woman in any field requires you to be something more than you are, requires you to have to strive harder, ask harder, demand harder, act harder for the same things your male counterparts may have served to them on a platinum platter.

In spite of the battles women have had to fight and win in the past to create this fairly 'Utopian world' for the women of 2014, our Utopia can be a Utopian hell instead. 

I dedicated this month of July on a music TV show I host, 30Minitz, to the celebration of  Ghanaian women in music. The aim for this is to raise a month-long discourse about the Ghanaian music industry and it's relations with women. We commemorate Ghanaian female musicians  who have had to break through  numerous barriers raised against them simply for being female; Religious barriers (It's 'dishonorable' for a woman to get into the cheap, 'sexualized' business of music), Image barriers (women being forced into boxes that define female musicians as sexual objects),  Relevance barriers (women have to fight harder for their art to be taken seriously and to remain relevant). Women generally have to have that extra oomph to be successful in the industry.

In the video below, I present to you Ghanaian dancehall artiste MzVee and Afrobeats artiste Eazzy (also of Big Brother Fame). We discuss what it means to be female in the industry, the importance of fighting for an image that's true to you, the biological clock and whether it has to influence your timeline for success and much more!

MzVee, a rising star who is already garnering a solid following, was discovered on Vodafone Icons and started out with her group D3, hoping to be the Ghanaian Destiny's Child. The group however, had to split before they made any history and MzVee launched herself in Dancehall, a genre she loves.There being next to no females in Ghanaian Dancehall presently, Kaakie trailblazed a way for female dancehall musicians of our time like MzVee to have her voice heard too . In this video, she talks about how male-dominating but embracing the  Ghanaian Dancehall world has been, and how the females are hoping to overturn that dominance. She also speaks about being a 'Natural Girl', a movement she is passionate about that encourages women to be true to themselves. 

"When I entered the industry, I noticed that females didn't have a stand in music," says Eazzy.
 Eazzy has earned maestro status in  Ghanaian Afrobeats music. Her rap, her energy-filled style, are fairly avant-garde for Ghanaian female musicians in her time. She is unapologetic about her sexiness and has made a name for Ghana and Ghanaian Afrobeat music across Africa. Two years ago, Eazzy represented Ghana in the Big Brother House, and realizing the mad love Africa had for her music was something to be proud of.   In this video, Eazzy shares candidly her battle with the derogatory and 'over-sexualized' Ghanaian perception of women in music (Google 'Eazzy news Ghana' and the first headlines that pop up are about her relationship with her ex Keitta, and whether or not they had sex on live TV, not her musical prowess), being a female in the rap business, and she calls for the addition of a Female Artiste of the Year category to the Ghana Music Awards categories. 

30Minitz: Celebrating Women in Music continues this week on Viasat 1 at 4pm. This week's show would highlight  Noella Wiyaala, a rare Northern Star.

Remembering Maya Angelou - Ama Ata Aidoo Speaks

Ama Ata Aidoo speaks about Maya Angelou, literature, the revolutionary spirit of Ghana during the days of independence and the part African American greats like Maya and Malcolm X played in the New Ghana, and so much more. For the interview, please click the link below:
 

Ama Ata Aidoo remembers Maya Angelou