Review: Paapa Versa ponders identity crisis on Call You Mine

10 May 2022 - 16:24

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Since his 2012 debut album Solar, through 2014’s Songs for Kukua and the Technical Difficulties EP trilogy (the last of which arrived in 2020), Paapa Versa’s proneness to going against the grain has painted him as one with little use for pop success, fixating solely on “more serious” stuff.

Paapa Versa.

In Ghana, therefore, if a piece of music is marked by a nuanced tenderness and the customary navel-gazing that attends the alternative scene, there’s a good chance it’s coming from a certain Paapa.

‘Call You Mine’, his latest undertaking, seems to be cast in the same mould – and then it’s not. Self-produced, as has been its author’s habit, the song is withdrawn and introspective in how it tackles themes of insecurity while celebrating one’s support system. In the same breath, it lends itself to Afropop insofar as the label broadly describes sounds from the motherland – only, it oozes with uniquely radiant lyricism and vocal dynamics as well as a soulful, Motown-esque texture harvested in the A-flat chord progression.

There’s a way in which ‘Call You Mine’ listens as a love song. The musician has confessed that the record celebrates his good fortune of a wife. But rather than pander to the elaborate lust-filled imitations that have populated local pop, Paapa Versa portrays his partner as an emotional anchor unfazed by a compulsive creative troubled by sleepless nights and whose approach to life is scattershot at best. Take these lines from the song’s pre-hook:

Sometimes my mind dey spin
Following every wind
But when she holds me, I stabilise

I have long held the suspicion that women are the recipients of more love songs than God himself. An unscientific notion. No matter, I’ll call up this song – and nearly every Afropop making rounds today – to anyone with enough free time to indulge in arguments thus.

If he has enjoyed the plaudits that have accompanied being an alternative act, ‘Call You Mine’ also finds its persona beset by the existential questions that point to an identity crisis, including why it looks like artists of his kind constantly have to grapple with the notion that they are falling off the surface of the industry. “Oh what the hell have I become?” the last line of the second verse asks.

If both verses on ‘Call You Mine’ induce moping, its chorus is a joyful outburst of assurances: “No matter what you call yourself/ Or the crisis on your mind/
I’ll still call you mine.”

While it’s fresh music, ‘Call You Mine’, which is a prelude to Paapa Versa’s forthcoming third album Versa Villa, also feels profoundly familiar. Perhaps this is how a song achieves earworm status.

Stream ‘Call You Mine’ here.