Okyeame Kwame on what constitutes a good song, his inability to hurt plants/animals & how he would’ve stormed the Grammys clad in Kente with an Adowa ensemble!
Ace Ghanaian Hiplife act, Okyeame Kwame has defined what a good song is, commented on his vegan lifestyle and indirectly thrown subtle shots at Ghanaian Grammy attendees.
He revealed in an interview that writing a very good song is not restricted to any particular duration but the key elements present in the song. According to the ‘Rap Dacta,’ all that matters is having the inspiration and thoughts well pieced to put out a good song.
Speaking on Joy entertainment, Okyeame Kwame disclosed that it takes some qualities and key elements to produce a very good song.
‘‘When we say a song is a good song, written song, it means it has three key elements, one, the poetry in the song is alive, so the literary devices and then two, the theme of the whole conceptualization and the styling is art and three, the solid experience, when I say that I mean the element of the instrumentation that must go with the theme and the art in the lyrical writing also are lines, it has the rhythm, it has the rising, it has the peak and then it declines.
And at a point a song follows the pattern of a conversation and that when the artist shout, the whole music shouts as well, it means the whole orchestration from lyricism to instrumentation to the selection of the cultural experience, everything comes together to tell one story, that is a song that has been written well,’’ he explained.
Okyeame Kwame further spoke about the duration a good song should take.
‘‘You cannot put a number on it, sometimes you’ll be walking and a good song is falling into your head, and sometimes you have to sit down and be intentional about writing a song, let me pitch in something, so a song of mine that won song writer of the year was ‘ye fre me sika’ that won song writer of the year, it took me a long time to write that song, I did research to find about the history of money, the relationship between money and love, money and people, money and country, money and war, I did a proper research on that song and I gave it to Zack Mallet who stylized it and it became ‘ye fre me sika’ that won song writer of the year at the VGMA.
When you listen to some of Kofi Kinaata’s song, the orchestration is in line and also when you listen to Akwaboah’s songs and Daddy Lumba’s ‘yentie obiaa’. When we say a song is well written, it means that the selection of the poetry and musical elements speaks the same language, it is consistent and it has a clear direction to achieve a certain result,’’ he added.
Furthermore, the Ghanaian Hiplife musician, has made a case for why he treats animals like he would treat human beings. According to the “Made in Ghana” rapper, who revealed he’s vegetarian, he came to the realisation that animals have the same feelings as humans, hence his decision.
“I’ve been vegetarian for six years, vegan for two years. I don’t eat meat or anything from animals except honey. One day I just realized that the most important thing to me is my life and I saw the cow feels the same way. If my life is important to me, and I want to watch my children grow, and the cow and the chicken also feel the same way, then I shouldn’t eat them. I stopped” he told Giovani Caleb in a recent interview on 3FM.
Taken aback by his submission, host Giovani further asked; “So, you’re one of those people that if a snake enters your house, you’re looking at how to save it before surviving?” to which The “Rap Docta” replied;
“You know what is interesting? There are 200 species of snakes and only 20 of them bite to kill. If you look at where the eyes are, you can tell whether it is poisonous or not.”
Giovani, who could not believe Okyeame Kwame would give up his survival just to check on the species of the snake retorted; “At that moment of survival, you’re thinking of species?” to which Okyeame Kwame gleefully answered;
“If it confronts you, then you need to save yourself, obviously. But a snake has entered your house, it’s in the kitchen, then everyone is looking for something to come and hit it?”
Okyeame Kwame added that once human beings are able to differentiate between love and fear, they’ll come to understand that everything deserves love.
“The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is fear. And we fear what we don’t know. So, if you take your time to know the things that are of importance to you, you’ll have no fear. And once you have no fear, you become complete love. And once you become love, you can’t hurt people; you can’t hurt animals. Even when you’re coming to eat a plant, you know you’re hurting it and you’re sad for it,” he stated.
Moreover, Ghanaian musician, Okyeame Kwame has stated that he would have made a spectacle, had he been invited to the Grammys.
According to the “Made in Ghana” advocate, he would have made sure to represent Ghana strongly at the 65th Grammy Awards if he was invited.
In an interview on Joy FM’s ‘Showbiz A-Z with Sammy Forson, the “Rap Doctor” gave a breakdown of how he would have appeared at the Grammy’s red carpet, had he been invited.
“I would have gone in my kente, in my ‘ahenema’, with my beads all around, and get like a boom box, a boom player and be playing ‘adowa’. Since I cannot go with a whole ensemble, I would have a whole boom box following me, and then I would gone in my regal kente and gold everywhere and it would have been very difficult for anyone to steal the shine,” he told Sammy Forson.
This year, three Ghanaian artistes (Stonebwoy, KiDi and Edem) were invited to, and accepted the invitation to the Grammys by the Founder of GUBA Enterprise, Lady Dentaa Amoateng MBE.
Okyeame Kwame asserted that it was a great opportunity to see his colleagues attend, and expressed that he would have gladly accepted the invitation had one been thrown his way.
“I thought it was an amazing opportunity because if I had the opportunity to go to the Grammys I would jump on the next flight to go and see all those amazing artistes that I look up to and seize the opportunity to try and see if I can get a telephone number or two, so I can get some features and take pictures and take pictures for my social media and connect; find management and find plugs, and try and see if I can get a real connection with someone that can take my music to the next level,” he added.
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