Yes, I'm back. Like they'll say in Ghana, wɔabɔga bio. Well, I've been back to Yankee for more than two weeks but this is my first post of the new decade. Had too much fun chillaxing and chilluping in Ghana to blog, so I saved most of my thoughts as texts on my Nokia phone. In fact, na Borga nso ayɛ loose to afford the costs of slow Ghanaian internet. It's not always easy for us Borgas. Even when we have 'returned' to Ghana on holidays to visit families and do other things, we find the costs of living not much different from 'Aburokyire'. Ghana's fastest and hottest rapper at the moment, Sarkodie knows this too. He composed a song about Ghanaians in the Diaspora and it is quickly becoming a cult classic. In fact, in the years to come, we shall all remember Sarkodie's Borga as one of the legendary hiplife songs. Let me tell you why.

Michael Owusu, known to many fans as Sarkodie, is a hiplife artist. He had spent the last few years freestyling and engaging in rap battles in Tema. Rumour has it that he never lost one. If you've watched Eminem's 8 Mile, Sarkodie has a similar story. He recorded various underground mixtapes and then eventually became widely known after featuring on Ayigbe Edem's Bougez (Ke va) song. His first music video, Babe (baby), featuring Mugeez of R2Bees catapulted him into the national spotlight. He's still been churning mixtapes, his 'Politics' track surfaced around the 2008 elections and quickly went viral. Today, he has been signed to Konvict SA, Akon's record label in Africa. Hiplife legend, Obrafour, featured him on one of his latest singles, Hiplife, as if to say, Sarkodie was to bear the torch for the genre in these times and beyond. With songs like Lay Away (ft Sway), Edey be (ft Paedae), Altar, and a monumental song like Borga, the sky is the limit for Sarkodie.

...Sounds on da ground and seens on the see-ins

It's two years to Ghana's next presidential election, and the race to govern/lead Ghana is heating up. Candidates have started campaigning and others are rallying support. I watched 'Good Evening Ghana' with Paul Adom Otchere on Africast recently and he was interviewing Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, an aspiring presidential candidate who doubles as Korle Bu's CEO. One major issue raised in the interview was that the professor was too 'cool' and didn't want to get involved in the dirty aspect of politics - verbal assaults, character defamation, etc. The other candidates are already resorting to criticizing their opponents, but our favourite cardiothoracic surgeon is trying to stay away. It's a political battle and the language used is not pretty. Well, maybe one person can battle and use pretty language, and that is none other than my favourite musician, Obrafour.

...Sounds on da ground and see-ins on the scenes