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In the fast Lane
With Wang w'Angamba
So Akon didn’t show up last weekend? That’s
what you get when stardom gets into some people’s
heads. Me, I went to watch Ayo, who is 100 times better
and boy, she did show up!
You may not have heard of Ayo, but that’s only because,
as my friend Timothy Kalyegira would put it, you have been
feeding on “posho and beans” music, the likes
of Akon. If Akon is posho and beans, Ayo is caviar, though
she herself would balk at being described as such. She is
so down to earth that she would prefer to be described as
dodo. And yet there is nothing dodoish about her music.
Ayo is an acoustic soul singer, with a bit of reggae in
the mix. She plays the acoustic guitar and the piano. She
has such a distinctive voice that once you have heard one
of her songs, you can instantly recognise the others. Her
songs are more about the message than the tune and the beats.
If you must make a comparison, think of Tracy Chapman, Joan
Armatrading or Sade.
Like Sade, Ayo’s father is Nigerian. Her mother is
Roma (Gypsy). She was born in Germany but in keeping with
the popular imagination of Gypsies as nomads, she has lived
in Nigeria, United Kingdom, United States, France, and of
course Germany.
Her rather complicated childhood (a mother addicted to heroin,
her parents’ divorce, living in foster homes) probably
gave her a serious outlook to life that comes through her
songs. One of her more popular songs is, in fact, called
“Life is Real”.
Ayo’s concert last week was, of all places, in a
theatre. Given the type of music, which is more for listening
to and contemplating than for dancing to, and having slept
for only two hours the previous night, I was worried that
I might struggle to stay awake. Far from it, Ayo had us
up on our feet clapping and singing along in no time. Soon,
we were shouting “boys!” at the girls and they
were screaming back “girls!”. I don’t
know who won that particular battle.
By the time the concert ended, and with Ayo’s encouragement,
fans had taken over the stage. She was quite happy to dance
with them, hug them, take photos with them and chat with
them. Dressed in white jeans and a buggy white t-shirt,
she could well have been the girl next door. There was no
hint of stardom having got into her head.
In fact, she insisted she doesn’t like the idea of
being a star.
And there were no sexually explicit dances with 14-year-olds:
That is Akon’s thing.
wang@ugandaobserver.com
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