Release Date: May 19, 2017
Genre(s): International
Record label: Glitterbeat
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy 1000 Can Die from Amazon
A pozora Ayisoba, better known in Ghana as King Ayisoba, became a star in west Africa by furiously updating traditional styles. He comes from the far north of Ghana, where he studied the kologo, a two-stringed lute, before moving to the capital Accra, where he used the traditional instrument to provide the backing for his massive hit I Want to See You, My Father. It's very much in evidence on his new album, along with a variety of Ghanaian drums, which are mixed in with beats, electronica and echoes of hiplife, the local blend of highlife and hip-hop.
You might be familiar with the 'Africa is a country' crypto-meme, likewise the blog of the same name, which serves as sarcastic rebuttal to Eurocentric ignoroids who treat a continent of 1.2 billion people as an indistinguishable mass. King Ayisoba, a latterday Ghanaian musical icon, is similarly sweeping on 'Africa Needs Africa', the opening track of 1000 Can Die, his fifth album. "Some of our leaders / Sell all their property," he laments, in his trademark rasping vocal style; "Some of our people / Travel in Europe...
is available now