The Sweet Mother Tour (SMT): An Explication By: Derrick N. Ashong Nov 2, 2004

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1 The Sweet Mother Tour (SMT): An Explication By: Derrick N. Ashong Nov 2, 2004 When I was growing up, my parents always told me that I should be proud to be an African; that I should always remember where I was from and those who came before me. My parents told me that my homeland was a great one, that I was born of royalty and that I should be proud to be from Ghana. But as I child I was not. If you had asked me where I was from at age 7, 12 or 14 I would most likely have said Brooklyn. Why? Because Brooklyn is what I remembered and so I believed it was who I was. I left Ghana at age 3 and moved with my mom and my sister to join my father in New York. Behind me I left two of my mother tongues, the rest of my family and an identity I would only come to comprehend and value as an adult. From age 4 to 8 I lived in the U.S. with only one Ghanaian language remaining in my mind and an understanding of neither the importance nor location of home, despite my parents best efforts. At age 8 my family moved to the Middle East where we lived until our return to the U.S. when I was 16 years old. Upon moving to suburban New Jersey after eight years abroad I was rudely awakened to the fact that I was not, in fact, an American. Not in the eyes of my peers and not in the eyes of the state. And the more I came to know my new world the more I realized that I saw many things differently from those around me. It was not until I went to college that I truly began to define my identity. For the first time in my life I was not around anyone who spoke my language. There was no one to cook me Jollof Rice or Gari Foto or Nkatse Wonu and I had certainly never thought to learn how to make such dishes for myself. For the first time I began to realize that Africa was much closer to my heart than I had ever thought, and to wonder just how much of me was missing in the absence of a knowledge of my people. My Freshman year, determined to learn more about African peoples, I enrolled in courses on African and Afro-American history. My Sophomore year, I decided I needed to get away from Harvard and I wanted to go home. I went to our study abroad office and asked: how can I go to Ghana? They showed me the options and I picked a program from the School for International Training that focused on the African Diaspora. It is here that the story of the Sweet Mother Tour begins. In September of 1995 I went home for the first time in 8 years. As soon as I stepped off the plane at Kotoka International Airport in Accra and smelled the distinct, but familiar scent of the air, I knew that I was home. I spent the next four months being quickly disabused of many romantic notions of home, and being introduced to new and wonderful realities of who I am and where I am from. I discovered that I in fact could speak my language better than I d ever thought and amazingly enough, after 17 years of living abroad I felt more welcome in Ghana than I had anywhere in my life.

2 I was embraced by my family, by people I met during my travels around the country, and I was challenged to learn more about myself and about my people. I hung out with other young folk at the beach and at clubs and noticed that kids in Ghana danced to pretty much the same music kids in the US danced to mostly mainstream American Hip Hop. I remember asking some of my friends why they never played Highlife at the clubs, and getting the response that basically Highlife is old school, Hip Hop is where it s at. That was I did not return home again until January of Again, I went to the clubs to hang with friends and family and discovered something interesting. I still saw kids bobbing their heads to popular American Hip Hop. But the overwhelming majority of what I heard was in our indigenous languages and had a different groove and feeling to it than anything I had heard before. It was thus that I was introduced to Hip Life. It was also the first time I was ever called nigger in Ghana. It wasn t a momentous thing. Just a young brother seeing my clothes and hearing my accent saying what s up my nigga? I almost did a double take. What? I politely said hi and kept steppin, thinking all the while about how strange it felt to hear that word here And so I began to question the influence of Hip Hop on my people both at home and in the Diaspora. Since the mid to late nineties I have had the feeling that Hip Hop in many ways no longer represents my thoughts, feelings, hopes and aspirations. Is this because I m getting old? I don t think so. Age is neither a requisite for nor a determinant of honor. As a child my parents taught me that African people are beautiful and proud, and that I should respect myself as well as I respect others. Growing up, Hip Hop made me feel proud to be Black. Artists like Public Enemy, KRS-One, Eric B and Rakim, the Native Tongues Posse, NWA, Ice Cube and more made me want to learn to rhyme, to breakdance, to be with my people and to fight tooth and nail against anyone who would seek to diminish who we are and what we can accomplish in this world. By teaching me to be proud of my homeland and heritage my parents laid the seeds of a revolutionary mindset in my heart. But it was Hip Hop that watered and fueled these seeds to grow into a tree that sought knowledge, rejected oppression and dared anybody to test me mentally, physically or spiritually. Hip Hop was my defiance, and it taught me to defy a society that told me Black was bad and someone like me couldn t be an A- student, or a Harvard grad and definitely couldn t be those things and still be cool. Today I don t believe mainstream Hip Hop teaches youth the things it taught me. I think the Hip Hop that most of us are exposed to today teaches materialism, greed, disrespect of women (particularly Black women) and that the only expression of a viable Black manhood is in violence and bravado, typically as directed against poor people of color. The commercialization of Hip Hop has in many ways stolen the soul of the music. As an artist, as an African, as a man, as a human being I reject the characterization of my people as merely gangstas, thugs, bitches and hoes. Further, as a scholar and an activist I recognize that the impact of music on society extends far beyond entertainment,

3 particularly as it has long functioned in African cultures. We don t just sing our songs, we live them, and they in turn reflect and inform our lives and our values. So in January of 2002 after discovering that I am allegedly a nigger at home as much as I am in the United States, I decided to put my talents and energies towards presenting an alternative image of who we are; one that allowed for art that was fun, funky, sexy, cool and could still make you feel good about who you are, as a man, woman, African, human being etc. I set out to build a musical movement that would bridge the gap between Africans at home and in the Diaspora and empower us to critically question what is happening to us in the world today and to reclaim our pride in ourselves. The world speaks of the economic, public health, political and human rights challenges facing the African continent. I hear tell of a crisis of leadership in Africa. Indeed all these issues are real and troubling. But I maintain that no people can hope to rise from under the thumb of poverty and oppression without a belief that they themselves are not only worth saving, but capable of saving themselves. So long as the fate of African peoples lies in the hands of the EU, the U.S., the IMF or any other colonial Western acronym, we cannot and will not be saved. It is for us to save ourselves, and in order to do so we must see a new vision of Africa and her children whether they be in Lagos, São Paulo, Johannesburg, Kingston, Brooklyn or Accra. The fight for the liberation of Africa must be vigorously engaged in the cultural sphere if it is to have any hope of success in the political and economic. And so I present to you the Sweet Mother Tour (SMT). In July of 2003, after researching who s who in the music scene in Ghana, I took a team of artists from the band Soulfège to Accra to work with Panji Anoff, one of the pioneering producers in Hip Life, to produce a record that embodied a different sound and vision of Africa. We called the record Heavy Structured to represent the depth and power of who we are, and dubbed the music Afro-Diasporic Groovalicious Funkadociousness in recognition of the unique blend of trans-atlantic sounds that it embodies. Fusing Funk, Reggae, Hip Hop and Highlife, we took one of Africa s best loved songs Nigerian artist, Prince Nico Mbarga s Sweet Mother and along with Hip Hop/Dancehall producer Wayne&Wax of Cambridge, Massachusetts remade and remixed it with a sound and sentiment that the youth of today can groove to; mind, body and soul. In June of 2004 we produced a video for the first remake of Sweet Mother in Philadelphia and NY. In July we took a team of 20 musicians, activists, educators and filmmakers to Ghana, where we released the first video to national TV, and produced a second video to a remix of Sweet Mother. The remix takes the traditional them of love for one s mother and extrapolates it to love of motherland. It calls on the children of the African Diaspora to look home and fight for Mama Afrika. The video for this Sweetremix track presents a look at the life and beauty of the people of Accra, Ghana that is in fact a radical alternative to the death, destruction, hopelessness, incompetence and general victimhood that characterizes the typical depiction of African people in mainstream American media.

4 We are challenging how the world sees us and how we see ourselves. The next step in the SMT Project is the production of a film that looks at the influence of Hip Hop on youth in Ghana. We sought out the pioneering MCs, producers and DJs on the Ghanaian Hip Life scene, along with popular radio and TV personalities, scholars, artists and youth and completed primary footage of the film in Accra in July of We are now interviewing American artists to record their responses to what they learn about the situation on the ground in Ghana, as presented in the words of Ghanaians and through the eyes of a Ghanaian-American filmmaker. We believe the resultant film will present a dynamic challenge to the popular perception of Hip Hop both in Africa and in the United States and we hope it will spark discussion on what Hip Hop really represents to the global community of youth of today and what we hope to make of it in future. The music, the videos and the film are the first three components of the SMT. We are releasing the videos and music in various countries on the continent and in the Diaspora in order to raise awareness of the project. By harnessing the power of popular culture we believe that we can reach youth around the globe who might not otherwise be considering some of the issues we will tackle in the film, or feel empowered to address them. We intend to empower them. The fourth component of the SMT will be an interactive web site that in addition to providing comprehensive multimedia information on the project, will educate people about issues facing youth in Africa and the Diaspora, and connect them to ongoing youth empowerment and development projects throughout the Diaspora. This will enable any interested party whether a student, an activist, an artist or an investment banker to contribute to the fight for Mama Afrika. If Africa is truly facing a crisis of leadership, then we will build new leaders. I know some people will look at what we are doing and say: this is not going to work, or what can music do to solve problems? or who the hell are you to be doing this? Will Smith would be much better. To all these people I say nothing. My mama taught me to be polite whenever I can, and experience has shown me the naysayers will continue to say nay until we succeed, at which point they are welcome to get down too. In the meantime, for those of you who want to see change in the world, who believe it is not only needed but is possible, we say to you Akwaaba, (Twi for welcome ) and join us! The world is indeed in need of those who love life enough to struggle that all might enjoy its fruits. If not us, then who? If the youth of Africa all flee to New York in search of a better life, and then stay there contributing to the development of Queens and not of Kingston or Dakar or Port of Spain or Dar es Salaam, what becomes of our homelands? And what limited vision of merit could lead any of us to believe that we deserve the opportunity to thrive that so many of our brothers and sisters have not had? No. For us it is to fight. For me it is to not only know myself as an African, but to reach out in service of my people that I may do justice to the memory of those who struggled before, so that I might go further. I look behind me and I see the faces of Kwame

5 Nkrumah, Yaa Asantewa, Sekou Touré, Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Zumbi, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nat Turner, Martin Luther King, Jr., W.E.B DuBois, Ché Guevara, Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Steve Biko and countless others who believed in something greater than themselves. It is because I stand on the shoulders of giants that I can see a future where the lives of African people are of equal worth to the lives of all other peoples. In closing, the legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke once sang that A Change is Gonna Come. As far as I m concerned a change is here. It sings loud, proud and strong in my heart, and I hope it will in yours too. The train is moving spread the word. Africa Unite. Derrick N. Ashong is a musician, actor, activist and scholar who starred in Steven Spielberg s Amistad and is a graduate student in Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. He lectures widely on the influence of popular culture on youth identity. Visit to learn more about the SMT.

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