MAVADO VS SAMINI AT THE ACCRA SPORTS STADIUM

Despite the problems this concert seemed to be jinxed with, Mavado finally came on live at the Accra Sports Stadium…although those jinxes still seemed to follow.

1^st Jinx: The initial date of the show had to be postponed due to a last-minute scratched up match between Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko.

2^nd Jinx: Heavy rain deciding to pour heavily in the middle of the show when the audience had been either bored to death or amused to laughter with unfathomable, clownish acts that were supposed to hype the audience for more. Just didn’t work out.

3^rd Jinx: Dancehall/ reggae seemed to spring licenses from nowhere to smoke weed in the open. The stadium was ablaze in ganja, a smoke tribute to the love of dancehall and reggae musical expression. A little bird whispered in my ear about a policeman being passed a sumptuous roll of weed in a corner. The declared upright citizen of Ghana looked around stealthily and took a deep puff…for the love of Ghana!

4^th Jinx: high tempers and raised fists backstage somehow found its way on stage. Talk about drama!

Dancehall songstress, Kaki, was the first act that made the multitude of Mavado-lovers remember why they came to the show in the first place. Dressed in skintight, black leather pants, fitting over her generous hips and thighs, and a matching grey nude top, completed in heels, Kaki had the men salivating, and the women…not jealous, but taking a few lessons in sexiness. She appropriately started with a viciously sexy rendition of Gyptian’s “Hold Ya”, swinging her hips and thighs in circular motions. This coupled with the circular motions of her sweet, smooth voice (the kind of voice that does not try to be what it’s not) was a great aphrodisiac. She went on to perform other songs, including her popular single, “Too Much”, shoulder movements and swag proved her words true.

Kaki was followed by Nii and Yaw Siki singing “wop3 dodoo” which had the energetic audience roaring a sing-along.

Then a bomb dropped in the form of the King of the Streets, Kwaw Kese, complete in army combo and a huge, thick, pink scarf that reached his knees. To complete his haughty, aloof, and positively, dripping with swag look, were the ever present stunners. It is said, if you wanna look fly, just slip on the darkest shades (even when the sky is dark and you have no need of it.)  Performing some of his latest tracks, “Ma Kwan” and “Popping”, demonstrated why he and nobody else is the King of the Streets, at least when it comes to his genre of music. Kwaw Kese is the one man that can make rational adults, including George Bush, fold their fists and knock it against their heads and say “Abodam” with gleeful pleasure.

It was after this electrifying performance that the rain decided to douse the fire of the stadium. People run for cover in a very coverless stadium. The heavy rain set back the program about an hour, as when it stopped raining, the audience had to wait patiently, albeit forced, for the stage to be set up again, and instruments tuned.

It was after this forced, long intermission that the concert picked up pace. Performances by Okomfo Kwadee, R2bees, 4x4, and Sarkodie, performing back to back took the crowds to a crazy high.

R2bees’ performance was disturbed by technical difficulties, thus their whole performance was a creative and innovative mix of singing, adlibbing and including their audience in their popular tracks without instrumentals. The crowd definitely loved them, understood the problem, and sang along heartily. However, rumor backstage was R2bees were positively pissed with the organizers of the show for messing them up, and possibly threatening the image of a well-built brand.

4x4 kept up the energy with tracks like “Waist and power” and “Yesi Yesi”.

Sarkodie, landing in Ghana just two days before the show after his tour in the States, dropped in fluid motion, spitting and tongue-twisting Twi with English in his speed-of-light way. Azonto dances were instantly the thing to do at that particular moment, and was it done! Even MC for the night, Bola Ray, couldn’t help but jump on stage to show us his versions of this dance that has caught so much fire all over. The wait was definitely worthwhile.

It was after Sarkodie that the two key dancehall performers were to be ushered to their eagerly waiting audience: Samini from Ghana and Mavado from Jamaica.

Samini commenced, his performances starting off on a very slow note…despite the very dramatic entry, hoisting the flags of Ghana and Ethiopia, and a long intro before the man himself finally stepped onto that stage.  We got to wondering, where has our Samini gone? A big ‘However’ follows this statement because we were fooled. Samini filled the whole stadium with his charisma and talent and basically had the whole audience in him. What made Samini phenomenal that night was not the performance of his tracks, but the contrived free-styling Samini is known for and rose to the top because of. His flexibility in singing about anything and everything around him at the moment and making sense, both lyrically and rhythmically, captured his audience with a firm grip. One of his freestyles had everyone removing one piece of clothing, another telling his audience how ‘they’ wanted to kick him off the stage for Mavado to come up, basically connecting with his audience in sing-song conversational tunes. His performance was up to standard and more, a tribute to the truth of Samini as the Ghanaian Dancehall/ Reggae King, which Iwan just recently seriously contested and even won an award for.

Mavado reaching to his big audience

Mavado finally came up on stage to the gleeful delight of his fans, yelling “Ache saaaa” – great way to steal the attention of his Ghanaian audience from the great performance that had just ended. Starting on a good note, he commenced his performance with “I’m So Special”, a track madly popular in Ghana. His energy and enthusiasm were on very high levels. His performance slumped for quite some time when he began performances of songs the crowd did not know but were benevolently trying to appreciate and even sing along to. The slump was broken off from time to time with a few more of his tracks that had the audience roaring up again: “I’m on the Rock”, “Messiah, “Pepper”, “Gangsta for life” and  “Hope and Pray”.

The show which started at 11:00pm had Mavado inevitably performing to the wee hours of the morning. Now the question was raised constantly:

Mavado vs Samini?

Artistes billed to perform such as Raquel, Efya, Iwan, Dr. Cryme and Castro did not perform, perhaps due to the late start of the program, and the huge amount of time the rain stole. One cannot help but add another reason as the waste of time given to those sloppy artistes in the beginning of the show, which would have been used more wisely by any of the above mentioned artistes.

All in all, the concert, organized by Samini, Fantasy Entertainment and sponsored by MTN Ghana, could most definitely take the crown for recording one of the largest crowds in a single show, largely because it was made quite affordable to the public.

Also, it would have a record of worst disasters in one show, though being stopped by rain is much more plausible than the unexplained 40-minute break of darkness at the Trey Songz concert.

Yet another thing to draw notice to: the involvement of the phone networks in the music industry. This year alone has seen Mario in Ghana, supported by Tigo, Trey Songz in Ghana, supported by Vodafone and now Mavado in Ghana supported by MTN.

A big kudos to these networks for supporting the growth of the Ghanaian music industry, as well as putting Ghana on the map worldwide. Ghana may now not only be known as the country where Asamoah Gyan and Essien come from but the latest, fanciest destination of world-acclaimed music artistes.