Dede Meets Dede

It was an evening of fire works when Ghana’s highlife gem, Amakye Dede last Friday rocked the stage at East Legon-based Hotel Angelica with Nigeria born Afro beat star, Dede Mabia. Highlife and Afro beat fans from Ghana and Nigeria had their monies worth when the two Dede’s took them through a four-hour non-stop and thrilling musical session. Amakye Dede and his super high Kings band were first to taste the uncontrollable cheers from the fans when they hit the stage with one of the group’s oldest song “To be a man” which was composed in Nigeria. This song obviously kept both Nigeria and Ghanaian music lovers singing and dancing all through the performance. The Highlife star also performed songs from almost all his countless albums and was even forced by Radio Gold’s stylish Kofi Okyere Darko (KOD) who was the Master of ceremonies (MC) to sing a line from one of the tracks on his yet to be released album. Amakye Dede after taking his turn handed over the mic to his colleague Dede who praised the former for a wonderful performance “Amakye Dede you are great”, he said. Dede Mbiatu the musician who can be described as a graduated apprentice of the late celebrated, controversial musician Fela started his very energetic and heart beating performance with a song done by his mentor. The philosophical guest artiste who was hosted by vision storm Entertainment as usual during his performance paused to give a brief lecture on Africa’s worth and the Western intervention. He took his fans through a lecture on how America was trying to jeopardize the chances of Barrack Obama saying that “we’ve served you for very long time and it is time for you to see how rulership through service looks like”. he went on to question why America chose to build such a complicated and strange-looking Embassy on the soil of Ghana. “There is a reason for that and you people must question them”, he added. Very good on the saxophone the Niger man continued with his next performance with a song he called “too much talk talk” saying that the whole world keeps holding seminars all over and make proposals at every conference but none of their decisions were able to stand the veto power of America. Dede the most dreaded judge at the West African Idol reality show told the Arts Crusade in an interview that he was very proud to be performing like Fela. “He is my father he is all our baba what he teaches is real if the things you see me do is like him then am grateful”, he answered a question on how he felt being branded as Fela’s boy. When this reporter asked him if he did not intend to be himself but walk in the shadow of another musician he answered that indeed other musicians were also walking in different shadows which was not wrong in any way. He explained that by so doing subsequent generations of musicians would have the opportunity to see that what Fela represented was original. Felasophical Dede was optimistic that there was a future for classical African sound in the face of Hip-Hop and other renditions of western music infiltrating the African music scene. According to him Ghana used to be a nub of African music but had allowed itself for other Western music’s to take over the industry. “You could talk of people like Osibisa, Ramblers, E.T. Mensah and the rest, today what the young men are doing is killing originality”. African’s Dede said were very gifted people, saying that “the names of our food is even musical but we are gradually loosing the essence of creativity”. He told this reporter that young musicians were not eager and willing enough to search and find what was original adding that “anything good will trade itself, there is value in what we do, we make people happy and we must do it with sincerity”. Continuing Dede called for a change of attitude on the part of African as it was the only way the continent could market it priceless export which was dying out. “Music should be taught in schools, musical instruments should be made affordable, more bands should be spring up, Ghana is rich in culture and the industry can be used as a driving force, through music there can be reconciliation, market women will sell well, farmers will work well with good music”. Playing for over a decade without an album Dede promised to release one soon and also disclosed that he was considering a collaboration with Amakye Dede and other equally serious musicians in the country. He added that a musician is not measured by albums but his ability to express himself with sincerity.