Day: May 26, 2022

Since the debut of Big Brother Africa in South Africa in 2003, reality television shows have become a common feature on television stations across the continent. They have helped the development of a host of television stations in the wake of the democratisation of the airwaves in the 1990s. This paved the way for private individuals or entrepreneurs to own television stations, creating an environment of competition for viewership.

The phenomenon of reality television has not been without criticism.

Some scholars argue that the shows, particularly those that focus on obese individuals, objectify and – even worse – ridicule them for their body type and size. Other scholars on the continent, such as the famed Nobel prize winning author Wole Soyinka, are of the view that reality television shows offer nothing of value to Africans.

These criticisms haven’t dampened demand or supply. Shows range from music to dance, cooking, weight loss as well as cultural education and promotion reality shows.

Shows like Young, Famous, & African, and Date my Family are among the most popular reality shows engaging Africans on the continent and globally. Examples in Ghana include Ghana’s Most Beautiful, a reality show that showcases the cultural values of the 16 regions of Ghana.

Missing in the various debates about reality shows has been the views of the participants. We sought to fill this gap by engaging with participants in a dance reality show in Ghana called Di Asa (Just Dance). The show was designed exclusively for obese, low-income market women.

Our findings show that the women viewed their experiences as positive because they derived some benefit from participating in the show. They also had positive feelings about their size which they said they were using to their advantage with the help of family and friends.

The findings also indicate that television shows like Di Asa are not necessarily one-sided, seeking to exploit and shame the participants. They also challenge the notion that reality television is unAfrican, by demonstrating how family and friends supported participants targeting the ultimate prize in the show.

The show

The Di Asa reality show was created in 2017 by a relatively small Ghanaian media company, Atinka Media Village. It is privately owned with a TV station, radio stations, and an online presence. Atinka Media Village targets the Twi (one of the country’s major local languages) speaking population of Ghana.

The maiden edition began with auditions in markets around the country in which contestants were required to dance to earn their spot on the show.

What makes the show unique is the body size of the contestants. It only features obese women who compete for prizes based on their dancing ability.

The show became popular in a short period of time, winning the TV reality show of the year in 2017.

It is the first show in Ghana to feature plus size women.

In many African contexts, an overweight woman can be viewed favourably in terms of body size preference. However, there are limits beyond which a woman’s body size becomes socially unacceptable. In Ghana, derogatory terms like “obolo” and “cargo” are used for individuals deemed to have crossed the limits of the “acceptable” body size. These words also carry the perception that plus size women are lazy and physically inactive.

The maiden edition of the show shocked Ghanaian viewers due to the unusual body sizes presented on television.

What we found

We drew on interviews with 19 of the final 20 participants in the very first season of Di Asa which run for 13 episodes.

The participants were aged between 20 and 59.

The goal of the show was to identify the best female dancer out of a group of obese dancers. Evictions were carried out weekly using public votes.

The prizes at stake were a car for the winner, a mini truck for the person coming second and a motorised tricycle for the third.

Most of the women we interviewed said they had found participating in the show beneficial in ways that went beyond winning the top three prizes.

First was the fact that they earned an income. All the participants received the equivalent of US$50 for each week they remained on the show. This was a substantial amount given that a petty trader at the market doesn’t, on average, make that much.

The participants also received a range of products from the companies that sponsored the show. These included noodles, herbal energy drinks and cocoa products.

Most of the women said that they had become fitter due to their participation. The final set of participants had a trainer who worked with them routinely. They also had doctors discussing healthy eating options with them.

Financial management skills was another benefit from participation in the show. This was especially important given that most of the participants traded for a living and could parlay the lessons learnt from training sessions into growing and expanding their businesses.

Above all, the women became recognisable faces in their neighbourhoods and enjoyed the “celebrity” status that came with this. This boosted their self-esteem, something they all remarked on in the context of the body shaming that takes place in Ghana, including name calling.

Participating in the show also opened up new job opportunities. Some of the women were invited to dance at events for a fee, one had created a YouTube channel while others had been approached by advertising firms.

The owner of the TV station that sponsored the show also offered some employment opportunities in the pharmaceutical company he owned.

Given the advantages associated with participation in the show, friends and family members of the women were actively involved in their participation. In a number of cases women said they’d been alerted to the opportunity of participating in the show by family members or friends. Some went as far as to provide financial support to cover registration and participation.

In other cases family members and friends supported the women by campaigning for them and providing financial resources for people to vote for their contestant.

Conclusions

Our study shows that the participants of this particular show do not view it as a fat shaming exercise.

Rather, they saw it as providing them with opportunities such as making money and becoming celebrities that they otherwise would not have had. Hence the general support for auditioning and participation that they got from all and sundry.

Source: The Conversation

Tamale, May 26, GNA – Next Level, the United States Department of State’s dance and music exchange programme, has strengthened the belief of young artistes among other youth in the North to do more to shine in their chosen fields.

While those already in the music and dance sector said Next Level had exposed them to new things, others wishing to break into the sector said it had heightened their interest, which they would work hard to realise to contribute significantly to changing society.

Next Level uses hip-hop to teach leadership, foster careers in the arts, and empower youth to develop community-based solutions.

As part of the exchange programme, four American artiste-educators arrived in Ghana on May 23, at the start of a two-week residency to engage and mentor young artistes and youth in the north and in Accra.

They are Suzi Analogue (Beatmaking), a prolific producer, songwriter, composer, member of the Recording Academy /Grammys and creator of Never Normal Records based in Miami, Florida, Arianna “Kala” Brame (MC), who is multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, arranger, poet, MC, bandleader, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York, Damien Mitchell (Graffiti Art), who specialises in large realistic graffiti and mural work, Harry “Fullout” Weston (Hip Hop Dance), who directs the UCLA Hip Hop/Street Dance Summer Intensive, and Hakim Zziwa “Hakim.Z” (Videographer), who is passionate storyteller inspired by his background as a dance artist.

About 50 young artistes and young people in the north have been selected for the exchange programme, where the four American educators have been conducting workshops, lecture-demonstrations, and master classes from May 23, to May 28, to teach them dancing, hip hop, graffiti, music beats making, videography and MC (master of ceremonies) for professional development, cultural exchange, and career mentoring.

The exchange programme will end in Tamale with live performances on May 28, at the Jubilee Park after which the American artiste-educators will head to Accra for the second leg.

Fuseini Zakaria, a Professional Dancer and member of Northern Best Dancers, who is one of the young artistes participating in the exchange programme in Tamale, lauded the initiative saying he had learnt a lot to further improve his art.

He said: “We have a good coach, who is working with passion. He always tries to make us happy before we start learning. So, we really enjoy the lessons. He teaches us a lot of moves and dance names that we never heard before. This is a big opportunity that has never come to the north before, and we believe and pray that this is going to create big opportunities for northerners.”

He added that “We do believe that this opportunity is an avenue for us to make it even bigger in our dancing career.”

Sakina Oases, a student, who is learning music beats making as part of the exchange, said she was enjoying her experience adding “In our society today, it is very hard to get jobs. So, equipping young ones like us with these skills is very good. With what we have learnt, with a little push, you will be able to do something.”

She said: “We have learnt how to make loops, the beats, theme melodies, drums, and other instruments together to get a perfect beat. Though I am not perfect yet, I am still in the process and I am sure by the end of the programme, I will be able to make a perfect beat.”

She said the experience so far has influenced her to develop her talent in music beats making, adding “I never knew I could make beats or I had interest in that but it has helped me to unearth my talent and interest in making beats. It has a significant impact on me and I will take it far.”

Hairia Issah, who is learning rap or hip hop, said “I have learnt new things that I did not even know I could do; how to write my own lyrics and rap it out. I would like to be a master in it.”

Epiphany “Big Piph” Morrow, Leader of the Next Level team said the youth participating in the programme had exhibited great talents, which showed that they had great future in the music and arts sector advising them to keep practising, find their own styles and collaborate to succeed in the sector.

Kevin Brosnahan, Press Attache, United States Embassy in Accra said the young people participating in the programme had lots of potentials and opportunities and urged them to identify their potentials as well as accelerate and create a future for themselves.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Highlife crooner and Afrobeat singer Orlando Julius Aremu Olusanya Ekemode died, according to his wife Latoya Aduke, in his sleep on 15 April 2022.

A titan of Nigerian highlife had passed on at 79.

With a career spanning almost six decades Orlando Julius stamped his foot on the sands of history, promoting his talents and laundering his country’s image across the globe.

Orlando Julius played the saxophone with dexterity, and ultimately became a pioneering force behind Afrobeat music: a genre which was later adopted and promoted by the famous Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Highlife music originated from Ghana in the early 1800s as multiple African musical fusions mixed with Western jazz melodies. It is mostly characterised by jazzy horns and multiple guitars.

However, Afrobeat is a hybrid of highlife music that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It combines elements of West African styles such as fuji and highlife with American jazz, soul and funk.

Orlando’s prowess lay in his ability to combine his native Yoruba drums with the guitar and saxophone to produce a mixture of African rhythms and soul. This combination was to become the popular Afrobeat genre which he took to Europe and the US.

His early years

Orlando was born in Ikole Ekiti, a town in the South West of Nigeria in 1943. He was educated at St. Peter’s Anglican school in the same town. He also played for the school band in addition to receiving musical lessons from his mother. Following the death of his father in 1957, Orlando dropped out of school and moved to Ibadan to pursue his career in music.

He worked in a bakery while also playing drums and flutes with juju and konkoma (or konkomba) bands. Juju music is a style of Yoruba popular traditional percussion. The name originated from the Yoruba word ‘juju’ meaning throwing something or something being thrown. Konkoma (or konkomba) derives from the Gur people in the northern part of Ghana.

He went on to play at the now defunct political party Action Group’s secretariat in Ibadan. Here he connected with a Brazilian guitarist, Romero Lubambo, who invited him to play in Ondo. By 1960, Orlando was invited by a Nigerian highlife musician Eddy Okonta to join the band Highlife. With Okonta he learned to play saxophone professionally and became a highlife-cum-Afrobeat singer.

Career and legacy

He thus experimented variously with horns, guitar and American R&B to form a unique genre. He later left Okonta to form his own band and his first hit with Jagua Nana, a 1965 song in which a woman is compared with a Jaguar.

In the following year, 1966, Orlando released one of his biggest albums, Super Afro Soul, which further launched him as a committed singer and composer.

In the 1970s, Orlando moved to the US where he later formed a band with Hugh Masekela. Masekela was a South African trumpeter, singer and composer who was known for his jazz compositions and for writing popular anti-apartheid songs. They jointly produced two albums which they toured extensively with.

Orlando later returned to Nigeria in 1984 to continue his career in his homeland. Before returning to Nigeria, he had a stint with film by taking a role in Roots: The Second Generation, a US TV series about slavery. He also attended a film school in Oakland. But he never lost track of music as he continued to perform gigs and even opening for iconic US trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong.

Back in Nigeria

At the same time he had been working on albums on Nigerian labels and once back home, Orlando formed an 18-member band comprising all Nigerian stars and produced the Dance Afrobeat album. The band went on tour of the US with Lijadu Sisters.

In 2000, Orlando reproduced Super Afro Soul from 1966. He followed this up with Orlando Julius and the Afro Sounders and then Voodoo Funk in 2011. He went on tour of London in 2014 where he also collaborated with musical group The Heliocentrics to record more songs and new versions of his old tracks.

Orlando used music to promote and preserve his Yoruba culture. He entertained diverse ideologies from the outset of his career together with his African American wife. He was committed to advising his audience to live worthily by embracing the values of peace, love, justice and liberty.

He released Jaiyede Afro in 2014 which charted number 13 on Billboard World Album in the same year. In 2019, Orlando moved to Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria with his wife where he was honoured with a chieftaincy title of Gbeluniyi by Oba Moses Ogunsoye, the royal father of the town.

Source: The Conversation