'I And My Shoddy' Sweeps Kumasi

The city of Kumasi may not be a regular beneficiary of most of the huge showbiz acts that are held in Accra but when once in a while, a big show comes up in the city, the people really demonstrate that they know what it takes to have fun.

At the launch of Praye’s Shoddy last Friday, the people’s level of excitement and anticipation could not be missed. Ready to enjoy themselves, most of the Kumasi audience were “dressed to kill” and seem to be more than ready to have a good time. Shyness was certainly out of the question.

They danced whenever and however they wanted to and did not seem to care who was watching. Neither the drizzle of rain nor the four-hour lateness of the show deterred these people from having a good time.

Dubbed Nescafe Hit Parade and Launching of Praye’s Shoddy, the show attracted many hiplife lovers who had come to have a date with their music idols.

Lisarf Music Production the organizers produced a package that was exciting and paraded the likes of FBS whose performance, as usual included their astounding dance moves.

They entertained fans with popular songs from their album. One of which was Oluman Boogie which most of the people enthusiastically joined in singing. Castro has, over the past few months become one of the artistes whose presence alone generates so much excitement.

The screaming from the audience did not stop as he and Kokovelli mounted the stage to perform. As if in unison, almost everybody present at the show got up with others loudly cheering and swinging with Bone Shaker and Toffee.

To the delight of the audience, Castro and Kokovelli came back once again to perform Kokovelli’s African Woman and Zaaza. As they sang, those who were familiar with the Zaaza steps could not help but dance along with the musicians on stage.

Adding some spice to the show, Abeiku Santana, one of the MCs requested that two ladies from the crowd come up on stage to determine who could dance better. Initially the feeling was that nobody would mount the stage. But two ladies did and on stage they danced like “it was no one’s business.”

After a rather long wait in anticipation to meet Praye, the audience broke into loud applause when they finally appeared. They sang their already popular Shoddy and La Supadora as well as other songs on their album.

To the disappointment of the audience, however, most of the artistes, such as Batman, Obour, Nkasei, K.K Fosu, Ofori Amponsah, Tic Tac, Kwaadee, Mzbel and others who the organizers promised to perform on the night did not show up.

Deceptively, the MCs kept announcing their presence though they knew very well that they were nowhere near Kumasi. One would have thought that since the organizers owed it to the audience who had paid “good” money to watch their favourite artistes perform, the absence of the publicized artistes would be explained but none of the MCs did leaving everybody dissatisfied.

Apart from some amateur hiplife artistes whose performances compelled the audience to sneer and boo out of boredom, other hiplife artistes who also performed at the launch were Osibo, Frankie Taylor, King Zion, Quata and Aponkye.