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Music of Sunday, 17 December 2006

Source: ghanamusic.com

Barosky'Ronning' His Own 'Things'

After collaborating with Ofori Amponsah and Kofi Nti for sometime, Barosky has emerged from the shadows with his maiden solo album, Okyerewaa Ba.

Barosky has finally had a long-time dream fulfilled and Okyerewaa Ba, which has 10 songs on it, is the result of his patience.

The raga artiste explained to Graphic Showbiz that it was about time he released his own album because he had been featuring on other people's songs for far too long.

He has featured on the works of various artistes' such as Ofori Amponsah, Kofi Nti and K. K. Fosu.

The 10-track album opens with Okyerewaa Ba, the album title, in a slow-tempo vein.

It is a love song using a fusion of raga and jama beats in which Barosky is clearly heard at his "raga-chanting" best singing about his undying love for a lady he refers to as "Maame Okyerewaa Ba."

One striking thing about this song is that the chorus sounds similar to the chorus of Ofori Amponsah's Emmanuella, a song Barosky featured in.

The instrumentation, however, has been neatly arranged and makes the song worth humming to. The album also contains a fast-paced version of Okyerewaa Ba with very good jama beat.

A lead guitar opens the song and ushers in Barosky's voice singing You want to know. This is the newest, the freshest and the nicest, O hear all them say Barosky, you're the sexiest.... amidst jama beat which is worth dancing to.

Another song on the album with a mid-tempo highlife beat is Asem. On this track, the singer sings about his resolution to love his partner after pondering over her words of love for him.

Two features that make this piece enjoyable are the melody and the manner in which Barosky displays his versatility mixing the English and Twi languages in his raga chants.

Obido Ba comes in a nice highlife vein and has a slightly similar instrumentation that Appietus normally uses for most of Ofori Amponsah's songs.

This song can be described as a hiplife song since it is spiced up with a rap and the usual rhyming chants of Barosky.

Dance Hall Party, as the title suggests, adopts the Jamaican dance hall beat in a mid-tempo style and has Barosky singing in a Patois.

Though this song is good to listen to, the constant "made-up" laughter of Barosky in the background sounds boring and unnecessary.

The songs on the album were arranged by Appietus and features a crop of up and coming artistes including Mentor I contestant, Martin.

Known in private life as Isaac Obeng Mensah, 26 year old Barosky hails from Ashanti Bekwai and realised his music talent at the Golden Six College, a technical school at Laterbiokoshie where he was the Assistant Entertainment Prefect.

He later trained in sound engineering under Appietus from 2002 to 2004. He worked with him as an assistant engineer but took a break from that job to feature On Kofi Nti's maiden album, Rakia.

It was through the work at Appietus' studio and the success of Rakia that Ofori Amponsah got introduced to Barosky and later featured him on a number of his songs.

Barosky, a single father of one boy, had also featured on Sidney's Scent No.