Wicked Leaders

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Album Review

This is the first album of King Ayisoba with a full band, creating a total new high energy powerful sound with traditional acoustic instruments. This is the traditional music from the future. King Ayisoba is a 21st century songwriter, singing in English, Frafra and Twi, playing all over the world, living in megapolis Accra but never forgetting his Northern Ghanaian roots.

King Ayisoba is a big star in Ghana and is ruling the pop charts with his unique and catchy sound. Winning the Ghana music award for best popular song with his big number one hit single "I want to see you my father", a traditional kologo song, hit all hip life, high life, R&B and hip hop lovers in West Africa with surprise. King Ayisoba is changing the music scene again with this new full length album called "Wicked Leaders" holding no leaves in front of his mouth and addressing all who need to hear what is going on and what is going wrong in Ghana, in Africa and in the world. These songs are not love songs, these are songs with a message inside and it is coming out loud and clear, while standing still is out of the question, so we all better put power in our bodies and move with King Ayisoba.

While on tour with his band in Europe in 2013 King Ayisoba decided he wanted his new album recorded with only acoustic traditional instruments to put the energetic live sound on CD and let the whole world hear what traditional music can sound like in the twenty first century. The guluku drums, the percussive sinyaka, the dorgo, the wii (flute) and the kologo are all instruments played in Ghana’s North East region. Only the xylophone is from the North West of Ghana, played by the Dagaaba people. But King Ayisoba heard the young xylophone player called Maxwell Dagati somewhere in Accra playing all the famous King Ayisoba tunes and then asked him to join his band and so made a revolutionary mix of Dagaaba and Frafra instruments.

It is typical for the role that King Ayisoba plays in the Ghana music scene. Always crossing borders and bringing people together, modern and traditional, local and international. While on tour with Zea (Netherlands), he worked on a new song called Akolbire and invited Zea to join him on stage. The song was recorded in the Netherlands when the tour was finished. Most of the songs he recorded in Accra with his long time companion from the Pidgen Music label Panji Annoff, who also mixed a good deal of the songs. A few others were recorded in The Netherlands but all sound exactly like King Ayisoba had in mind; full of energy, direct and unlike anything else.