Highlife meets dancehall on Kumi Guitar’s Kro Kro Me

6 avr 2021 - 15:23

Highlife purists will tell you that the genre being banged out these days, despite clinging to that title, is not quite ‘highlife’, bewailing the absence of Kwao and Yaa Amponsah string phrases, which they stress represent the soul of the genre. The counterargument by modern practitioners is that old heads are robbing us of today by dwelling on yesterday. A music form that does not adapt risks extinction, progressives say.

Kumi Guitar.

In Kumi Guitar’s Shatta Wale-assisted ‘Kro Kro Me’, he offers an antidote to this stumper. The record manoeuvres the two stylistic persuasions with smooth mastery. It is centred on the Kwao guitar signature, which defines the archetypal highlife, but also emulsifies seamlessly with modern dancehall beats.

‘Kro Kro Me’ loosely translates from Twi as “pamper me” and finds its personas in utter adoration of their love interests. A master lyricist, Kumi Guitar’s penmanship on ‘Kro Kro Me’, which is devoid of the venereal indiscretion making up the ‘meat’ in most pop songs, honours the age-old oratory eloquence that the genre boasts of. Anything can be uttered publicly as long as it is crafted in the right poetic manner.

In a way, Mr Guitar’s latest artistic venture feels like a continuation (some may say, ‘improvement’) of a 2018 attempt featuring dancehall singer Jupitar. That record, titled ‘Temperature’ and produced by Linkin, tackles the unpleasant days in a relationship. While guitar smatterings contribute to that song’s appeal, it is bereft of an incentive to be anything other than ‘a good song’. Simply put, it was not as disruptive as its successor, which also tables a new hypothesis to the highlife question.

If listening patterns in recent years have taught us anything, it’s that a track’s success largely comes down to the popularity of its maker. We listen to names, not songs. Davido equals (=) Afrobeats, and in amapiano circles, it’s ‘In Kabza de Small We Trust!‘ Kumi Guitar is as vocal as they come, even going as far as to pronounce himself highlife’s Martin Luther King on 2017’s ‘Dream’. Were this remodelling done by another artist, its legitimacy would be questioned. But Kumi Guitar’s experimentations are backed by a stoic catalogue of singles that insure him against all scepticism.

‘Kro Kro Me’ echoes again something we have observed about Shatta Wale over his career: He may be Africa’s dancehall livewire, but he is also an ally to the folksy genre. In 2019, for instance, his ‘My Level’ won the Highlife Song of the Year accolade at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (he was eventually stripped of the award following an onstage brawl with Stonebwoy). In 2005, as Bandana, he released the neo-highlife record ‘No Problem’. ‘Bulletproof’, released in 2018, further demonstrates that under the right circumstances, he could be a highlife asset.

There’s little debate that this is Shatta Wale’s best performance on a highlife track. If this statement may seem hyperbolic, then his showing is definitely up there with his best. It is demonstrative of how he evens out Kumi Guitar’s delicate harmonies with the charismatic fierceness that has kept him at the top of Ghana’s pop scene for something like a decade. Staying clear of over-elaboration, Shatta Wale roars his way into the song; through his verse he presents the song’s central themes in five languages and with a dangerously appealing quality.

Shining the spotlight back on Kumi Guitar, it is impossible not to cite ‘Kro Kro Me’ among his best works; it’s a composition that heightens the anticipation of his rumoured forthcoming full-length album. His claim of being today’s highlife saviour may elicit contempt among some colleagues – and this is fair enough. After all, music is an industry defined by ego and competition. With releases like ‘Kro Kro Me’, however, it’s difficult to challenge the musician’s competence and diehard devotion to highlife.

Listen to ‘Kro Kro Me’ here.