Video: King Ayisoba f. Kwaw Kese, “Look My Shoe”
- story THE FADER
One of the more peculiar dudes we heard about while studying up for our trip to Ghana earlier this year was frog-throated kolgo-strumming Rasta King Ayisoba. While in Accra, we heard and saw his name a few times and had a handful of songs from his iTunes-able album Modern Ghanaians, but it was still pretty unclear what ties, if any, he had to the story that eventually appeared in FADER Number 52, centered around hiplife artist Kwaw Kese. Turns out, there is now a direct tie, as Ayisoba and Kese shot a video together north of Accra in Nima along with local artists Mokin and Wanlov the Kubolor. As a result of this song’s weirdly catchy keyboard melody, we have been walking the halls for two weeks asking people to look at our shoes. And then they do.
If King Ayisoba would like to email letters@thefader.com to let us know what we do next, we would appreciate it.
Freeload: D’Banj, “Why Me”
- story THE FADER
Over the weekend, MTV Base held the first annual MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs) in Abuja, Nigeria, and a convenient number of Nigerians took awards in the major categories, including Artist of the Year D’Banj, who performed onstage with Kelly Rowland during the show. The Game also traveled over there to do a little medley of hits for the crowd and was rewarded with a loss in the Best Hip Hop category to our man 9ice, from Lagos, who also beat out Lil Wayne. Seun Kuti did a tribute to his father with Egypt 80 and Alicia Keys called in an acceptance speech for her Best R&B award. Unfortunately, FADER 52 feature Kwaw Kese lost out to, surprise, Nigerian Naeto C in the Best New Act category, but he’d already backed out of the show to perform at the semi-disastrous Zain 026 Experience in Ghana the same night. Mobile service provider Zain, incidentally, sponsored the MAMAs also. So, in celebration of of the MAMAs successful launch, we’re offering up D’Banj’s “Why Me,” which sounds a little Akon-ish at first, but don’t sleep on the weird, womping synth melody and harmonica solo toward the end.
Download: D’Banj, “Why Me”
