Gospel star Obaa Yaa Grace Ashly has said she is not as invested in Black Stars matches as she used to be.

“I watch them play but I’m not so much involved because I must mind my business,” she told Nana Romeo, tongue in cheek, on Accra 100.5 FM’s Ayekoo Ayekoo, Wednesday, October 16, 2024.

A master at the art of cheering or jama, she said her patriotic songs for the Ghana Black Stars were spiritually charged through prayer and fasting, from the pre to post-production. She said sound engineer Roland Ackah, alias Roro, was her witness.

She said pastors like Apostle Francis Amoako Attah and Rev Yaw Owusu-Ansah would lay hands on her using her “as a point of contact” as they prayed for the success and safety of the Black Stars.

Simply called Grace Ashly, she said while “the Black Stars didn’t win a cup” during her active days cheering them on, “they didn’t also perform so disgracefully as they do now”.

She suggested the Black Stars had lost their vigour because they had lost the spiritual backing.

“They were receiving strength to perform from all these spiritual interventions but relying on your own strength will fail you,” Obaa Yaa Grace Ashly said.

The singer-songwriter bemoaned she was hardly appreciated by the sports leaders of the country for the self-financed songs and videos she released.

“I was told by the leaders it was my service of patriotism,” she said. “I just loved to do it and so through it all, I was not discouraged.”