Only last week, the name Ama Boahemaa bounced back onto the lips of several radio DJs across the capital with news of the release of her second album Awurade Wo Ba Reko.
After almost a year?s break since the release of her maiden album Awurade Bue Kwan, which incidentally earned her five nominations in the just ended Ghana Music Awards, the 21 year-old songbird from Kumasi appears to be set once again to shake the gospel music scene just as she did with her debut.
Having emerged from a very poor background as an orphan with a raw talent in music, Ama Boahemaa is noted for recording her songs straight from her head without writing down the lyrics, thereby churning out songs which relate her very life and existence to her listeners.
The in-thing about her songs seem to be the fact that she sings from her own life situations in a way that many easily identify with, and the title track Awurade Wo Ba Reko, which has been enjoying lots of airplay since last week, is sure to place her firmly among the top brass of gospel musicians in the country.
In the emotive-yet-lively reggae-oriented piece, Boahemaa lyrically relates the kind of struggles people have to go through especially in this part of the world where poverty and diseases have created a joyless existence for many. ??When I look both ways no help seems to come?, she sings, ??When I sell no one buys, when I sow I do not reap, when I lay down I cannot sleep, when dawn is approaching I am full of fear?Lord, your child is struggling??
Awurade Wo Ba Reko carries further, the weight behind the hit song Awurade Bue Kwan, and is sure to do several rounds of the most played songs this year.
Five other songs appear on the six-track CD with titles such as Ennyi Me Mma, Susu Kuruwa, Sika Ne Dwete, One Me Hwefo and Sane, which is the song to watch out for aside the title track. It is a greatly inspiring worship song in which Boahemaa creatively weaves her lyrics around several quotes from the bible, mixing them with that emotive tone that would prove almost irresistible to any type of listener.
On this second album which was produced by JMS Production, more highlife and reggae rhythms are blended into her usual three-beat gospel rhythm, but it seems that the similarities between this new album and her usual and her previous one is not only in the use of the name ?Awurade?. Very little change can be seen in the type of message Boahemaa wants to send across, with most of her lyrics positioning her on one hand as petitioner whose hopes rests in her God, and on the other hand as a worshipper who is full of joy for God?s help.
