Elivava Stands Up For Herself

Such good material in the hands of another artiste would have formed the basis for a couple of albums but singer Elivava has cramped all ten admirable tunes into one collection appropriately titled Elivava- I Live 4ever. Her material is, admittedly, not mainstream in terms of what is and has been popular on the Ghanaian market over the last decade or so. That fact does not, however, detract from the commendable effort put into realising the album . It seems she has her sights set on different and farther horizons and as she expresses on one of the songs, Ce pa ca, she would do things her own way to survive. Though this is her debut, Elivava has been around for a while and sang backing vocals for a string of better known names including Sidney, Amandzeba, Rocky Dawuni, Kojo Antwi, Rex Omar, Afro Moses, Samini, VIP, Atongo and Ekow Alabi. The wait to do her own stuff appears to have been worth her while because she manages to surround herself with formidable company to explore soca, straight funk, Afro-rock, highlife and a mixture of styles that defy easy categorisation. Elivava wrote all but two of the songs on the album and arranged the material with the help of experienced colleagues like Bessa Simmons, Johnny Fingers and David Kewa. The songs mostly danceable are in Ewe, English, French and Twi. She is an energetic singer and did the backing vocals with Maame Serwah and Billy Richardson. The passion for what she does is discernible in her voice as it rises and falls in accordance with the moods she tries to create with the different songs and their diverse messages. Instrumentalists on the album go all out to match her enthusiasm and there are fine moments on different songs for some of them like guitarists Kari Bannerman and Zapp Mallet, trumpeter Osei Tutu, bassist Gaultier, saxists Steve Mensah and Colonel Faat and violinist Kwame Thomas. They are well-versed players and have no problems with the varying styles called on to handle. Elivava herself sails around the different approaches with ample ease but she sounds so happy coping with the demands of each style that it is not very clear what her own distinctive approach is. As a backing singer, she was obliged to deal with all sorts of styles and she may still be thinking she has to keep up with that ability to make a mark . She is an extremely talented singer and she can go places if she takes the trouble to distill her own recognisable music style, as she has already done with her unique hairstyle. There are only limited copies of the album out on the market at the moment. Elivava says the work will go on general release after it has been launched in Accra next month.