Fameye ponders life’s meaning on Not God

22 Aug 2023 - 17:44

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Ghanaian singer Fameye’s music often explores existential questions, enveloping his work in an almost apocalyptic tone. However, at the core of his offerings is simply a commitment to leaving a positive footprint.

Fameye.

‘Not God’, a flowy overlap of highlife and spatial dancehall, remains faithful to this thematic underpinning, mining from fantastic writing and candid cadence that pulls from an earnest contemplation on mortality.

Here, Fameye, whose last album came out in 2022, rummages through raging thoughts, having tapped into ancestral awareness. All life is finite, he concedes, cautioning both himself and the listener to keep that in perspective. “I no be God, I go do some”, he declares before adding “The goal is to be happy.”

The chorus, delivered over a searing sax, underscores the desire to be content, while the verses incorporate ancestral proverbs and language oscillating between Twi and pidgin, highlighting the passage of time and the importance of treasuring moments. Fameye’s message crystallises around embracing one’s passions and undertaking meaningful actions, relinquishing the rest to God. This, he holds, is the fundamental demand of the world.

Collaborator Liquidbeatz, who steers the production of ‘Not God’, builds a recurring motif around smooth tones, a gentle bounciness and an echoey chord sequence. This musical backdrop remains unobtrusive as profound lyrics claim the foreground.

How a man this young becomes this obsessed with subjects like this will continue to induce head-scratching. Perhaps it is in the custom of the genres that deem him an apprentice. Nonetheless, the upside to Fameye’s method is that, having purged himself of the fear of death, his compositions have turned out to be a thing of great beauty; deeply philosophical and never mundane.

‘Not God’, because of its focus, should rattle local radio for long, inducing sombre reflection in its aptness as a dirge for its author’s own demise – or ours – when that day comes.