Thanks and praise with roots reggae

Ghanaian roots reggae artistes, based home and abroad, are stepping up their acts to get their ‘positive messages’ better heard here and the latest to step into the ring is Paapa Wastik.

Away from our shores over the last four years, the Cape-Coast-born and Mfantsipim School old student says he is back home for a few months from his Oregon base in the United States to promote his 13-track second album, Thanks and Praise and to make people aware of who Paapa Wastik is.

Paapa Wastik released his first album, Mama Afrika here a year before travelling outside. That was a blend of soca, hiplife and reggae which he called Roots Life music.

The new material is strictly roots reggae with different shades of the genre woven into a colourful tapestry of love and ‘conscious’ messages.

“I call the album Thanks and Praise because when I sit back and look at what the Most High has done for me, I cannot do anything but give thanks and praise to His mighty name.”

One of the reasons why Wastik feels so blessed was the opportunity to record four tracks on the Thanks and Praise album in the famous Tuff Gong studio in Jamaica. He was looking for a ‘live’ feel to some of the songs and was advised to go to Tuff Gong.

Wastik has no regrets that he heeded the advice because he got exceptional reggae instrumentalists, including percussionist Bongo Herman, regarded as the leading Nyabinghi drummer in Jamaica, to back him.

“I can say I was double lucky in Jamaica because I also had well-known reggae vocalists Lutan Fyah and Jah Marcus to feature on the album. They are artistes with the same mission as I and we enjoyed ourselves in the studio.”

Wastik affirms that all true roots reggae artistes have a mission not only to entertain but also to educate people with their music.

“We don’t sing music that will make people go astray. There’s no way we are going to sing profane songs. We do music that awaken people and lead them on an enlightening and righteous path.”

There are a couple of love-related songs but a big chunk of the material deal with serious social matters such as the need to teach children good ways, the search for justice and peace in the world, the evils of the Babylon system and being serious about life.

“It’s hard to say which is my favourite on the the album but I like Home Sweet Home a lot. I was taking a walk in the US one day and noticed how people, especially non- Americans, were hustling and suffering in a foreign land to make ends meets. The song was triggered by that realisation.”

Last year was a busy period for Wastik on the international reggae festival circuit. He featured in festivals in Jamaica, Canada and the US and he fondly remembers the 18th Annual Lafayette Reggae Cultural Festival in Louisiana on September 1 and 2.

“Lucky Dube was there with his whole band. We stayed in the same hotel and his room was next to mine. Apart from interaction backstage, we also talked a bit in the hotel.

I had not met him before but knew his music well and I was very glad to meet him.I couldn’t believe it when I heard about six weeks later that he had died.”

Other reggae festivals Wastik played last year included the Northwest Reggae Music Festival in Eugene, Oregon which also had Luciano, Ky-Mani Marley and Mutabaruka, the Reggae Rising Festival in Carlifornia and the Vermont International Reggae Festival.

“I have become familiar with reggae festivals and will hopefully organise one in Ghana next year. So many of the artistes want to come to Ghana and I know I’m the bridge now for them to do that.”

Though Wastik is fairly known in reggae circles in the US and Jamaica, his name does not ring a bell at all here. That’s why he plans to hold three shows in Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast before he returns to his base in Oregon.

He was a little boy in Cape Coast with little hope of rubbing shoulders with known international artistes. In giving thanks and praises to God for his circumstances, he has also decided to set up the Support the Needy Children Project and would present books and other educational material to school children in Cape Coast before he travels back to the US.

If it happens, those school children will be among the people to look forward to a Paapa Wastik-led international reggae festival in Ghana next year.