Rocky Dawuni & Kyekyeku release ‘Africa Till I Die’ video to celebrate the motherland
Photo: ‘Africa Till I Die’ cover art, Rocky Dawuni (left) and Kyekyeku.
The anticipated music video of Ghanaian artists Kyekyeku and multiple Grammy nominee Rocky Dawuni’s new collaboration, “Africa Till I Die,” has been made available after premiering on Pan African Music.
The song is a feature off Kyekyeku’s most recent album, Funky Pangolin, and is inspired by the musician’s interest in highlife and Rocky’s reggae roots. The song as a whole depicts a highlife melody that celebrates Africa in the face of many foreign stereotypes.
According to the project’s collaborator and filmmaker Slingshot, the video release seeks to showcase Africa and its beautiful people in its own light, its own words, and its very own story. Not the one portrayed by the skewed perception of Western media.
‘’I first heard Rocky in 1997 when his monster hit ‘In Ghana’ was on constant rotation on the radio. It wasn’t until 2007 at the Labadi Beach Hotel on the occasion of the 40th Independence Celebration of Ghana where Rocky held his annual ‘Rocky Dawuni’s Independence Splash’ concert that we met for the first time,” said Kyekyeku explaining his long desire to feature with Dawuni.
Kyekyeku and Rocky Dawuni in the single described the joys of living in Africa, including its tremendous beauty, the vigour and resiliency of its people, and the abundance of success and enthusiasm.
Rocky Dawuni, who is the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Africa’s Environment, has visited numerous countries and can confirm from his experiences that all life does, in fact, originate in Africa. The singer sings in pidgin, “people I dey meet, places I dey go, na ibi you be the mother, Mama Africa.”
The Pan African Music where it premiered calls the collaboration a musical success, in how the release “blends the native sound of Ghana, itself the product of a melting pot, with reggae born in Jamaica and claiming its African roots.” Without even a skank guitar, the highlife rhythm was slowed down to provide the perfect background for the reggae vocals.
It also let the bass soar, the organ play, and the horns punctuate according to Pan African Music, “the finest demonstration of a successful encounter, and it could only take place in Africa.”
Oral Ofori is Founder and Publisher at www.TheAfricanDream.net, a digital storyteller and producer, and also an information and research consultant.
