CONTEXT
2018-2019
Ghana
The song backing the montage of Twi-o's year in Ghana
SONGWRITING
In our down time, Erica and I would pull out the guitar. One day, while I was sitting on the front steps of our home strumming, Erica started singing the basic greetings in Twi we had learned so far in rhythm. The first verse developed, and kids from the neighborhood watching nearby freestyled to the beat I had for a second verse... and I realized we had just written a song! Kate immediately picked up the song, and choreographed a dance for it. By the end of the week, people were already singing it back to us!
Community Performances
I loved how involved the kids were in writing the song, and I flash back to living in the Tarkwa Breman community when I play or hear the song. Kate, Erica and I called ourselves "Twi-o", and this song became a way for us to connect to the community. Twi-o played guitar at church on Sunday, in the community on weekends, at the Tarkwa Breman Girls' School events, and as an opener during a community talent show. We were invited to radio stations, and played it live on air in nearby cities to help promote various events like a charity fundraiser event for Grow Advancement Ghana Foundation.
Travel Performances
Then, we took Akwaaba on the road! When we traveled away from Tarkwa Breman to a larger city to renew our visas, we would inevitably run into new groups of people, and new opportunities to teach them Akwaaba.
Kate produced a Twi-o Akwaaba music video that compiled many of the recordings of us singing Akwaaba all across Ghana!
It reminds me of singing with aunties at the back of a packed trotro in the dark on our way back to TB, in an alley market in Accra, and with kids all over Ghana.
"It doesn't hurt to ask"
I borrowed this mantra from Kate, but really started believing it by the end of the year. Through just being open to new opportunities and asking if it would be possible, we ended up recording Akwaaba in a studio in Accra in an afternoon, playing live for over 200 people at a Ghana Tourism Awards event, and copywriting the song and the music video before we left. At times, it felt like we were on tour when we would play in all these different places and end up having it sung back to us by the second chorus!
Fun fact: when I told a short story onstage at a Philadelphia Moth Story Slam on the topic of "Gratitude" about my year in Ghana, the story was titled "It doesn't hurt to ask".