Batman's Linda Blunder

HOURS have rolled into days and days dovetailed into weeks, ever since Nigeria’s telecommunication giants GLOCAF, clasped fingers with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to hold the annual award ceremony in Ghana.

While the fiesta was the very first in the country, the ceremony itself was punctuated with significant happenings of both negative and positive trappings. One thing led to another until a significantly monumental happening graced the occasion.

The presidential eyeball to eyeball contact of the President and the two beauties who Mceed the occasion, following the evidently clear episode of exploiting feminine beauty to good effect to the point of mesmerizing President J.A. Kufuor, awakened the enzymes of all present.

Of course the crowd loved the compliments relayed by the President, as they yelled in unison to greet his invitation to the captivating gems to hang on a little longer, for the activities leading to Ghana’s Jubilee celebrations. That night, Africa really unified as one for the continent showcased its varied array of cultural strength embedded in its rich human resources. It was one of those nights of extreme African passion we would miss for so long a time. But there remains a NATIONAL APOLOGY to render as a Ghanaian for on that night, while the rest of Africa glowed in cultural greatness, Ghana showcased its sorry side on a continental platform while it was beamed to the rest of the continent.

A lad called BATMAN SAMINI took centre stage with a clutch of the microphone only to paint a sorry picture of the Ghanaian showbiz world. Whoever invited him ought to go on his knees in prayer and plead for forgiveness. Those noisy and pattern-less songs he sang gave the game away, for the occasion could have done minus the appearance of a cultural haemophrodite who is neither fish nor meat.

The unwarranted prattling of LINDA, O LINDA and later on an accompanying one was so out of place for the occasion that, several people including me, felt like vomiting instantly.

If other areas of our national life have accelerated in the progressive stakes, certainly that is not the case with these young lads who borrow foreign tunes, sing so hurriedly in our local dialect while forking out their fingers as the PREYING MANTIS does yet, believing they are the stars of the sky set apart to illuminate.

Their idea of copying America back to Africa is as sick as the attire they usually don while on stage?

Is this the rubbish they want to package as Ghanaian showbiz exponents? Not long ago Capt (Rtd.) Courage Quashigah showed some concern until he laid into the disturbing phenomenon, only to back-pedal and apologise unreservedly. On that occasion, the Minister lost his courage for he had said IT LIKE IT REALLY WAS.

Minister Quashigah had thought there was something absolutely wrong with the showbiz youth, whose appetite for playing the caricature in the black neighbourhoods of America on Ghanaian stages, was gradually eroding and demeaning our cultural musical values and norms.

But on the GLOCAF NITE, Ghanaian showbiz was to be taken through monumental lessons later on, when the Nigerians took over from the faultering BATMAN. The usage of the African drums to good and musical effect shamed the LINDA, O LINDA noise into insignificance for after all when the head of state is in town, does the ASSEMBLY MAN not pale into nothingness?

The difference in class was really great. This indeed was further evidenced by the display by South Africa’s Yvonne Chaka Chaka. That really received presidential admiration as we saw later on, for President Kufuor was actually beating a sturdy tattoe to the beat. In future, whoever lines up artistes for such a high field of African audience does not have to forsake the kennel for the lisk. Quality performers with true African roots such as NAT BREW, KOJO ANTWI, and REX UMAR fortunately live in our midst and so why should we sidestep them, to make a laughing stock of ourselves to the rest of the continent?

Thankfully, there are a list of international programmes coming up such as the AU Summit and the Non-Aligned Movement Conference, which will all require that Ghana puts its best foot forward in the showbiz sense.

Perhaps a first mistake could be pardoned. But a repetition would mean we have a special appetite for pushing the wrong button, for there is no use exposing rather embarrassingly, the terrible fangs of a cultural musical mess. Over there in England, Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologised to President Kufuor for the slave trade and its attendant atrocities. How come we want to put in the shade our hardworking musicians who refuse to borrow rather lazily from the slave master, but have resolved to create their own African cultural identity?

Let us put it in our pipe and smoke for it will save all of us the embarrassment the President had to sit through, while LINDA was fed the assembled guests on borrowed culture, as half-baked artistes forked their hands forward just like the preying mantis does.

Quite frankly we could have done without this LINDA BLUNDER.