ONIPA: Bright future
In teaming up with musician and producer Tom Excell, K.O.G. (Kweku of Ghana) has created one of the most exciting Afro futurist sensations
ONIPA was born out of deep collaboration between long-time friends K.O.G. (Kweku of Ghana of KOG and the Zongo Brigade) and Tom Excell (MD, guitarist and writer of acclaimed jazz/ soul afrobeat pioneers Nubiyan Twist). Their debut album We No Be Machine was released on Strut Records in March 2020, and their latest release is Tapes Of Utopia. We caught up with Kweku of Ghana during a UK tour.
Where did your love of music come from?
I’ve always written and been interested in art. My dad was a marine engineer so he used to bring records home when I was growing up like Prince, Fela Kuti, James Brown. So all the mixture of jazz and funk and opera – I love opera – influenced my traditional way of playing when I was growing up. We’d play the drums on the beach. That’s how I grew up, with no shoes on the beaches of Accra. It gave me that kind of futurism.
How did that influence ONIPA?
I’ve always been a weird kid, into alternative arts. I’ve never fit into the Ghanaian music scope, so I came to England. I’ve always wanted to do a band like ONIPA, a fusion of futuristic and traditional sounds. People tend to think that African music is just Afro-Beat or flashy gentlemen wearing gold. There’s a kind of commerciality to it that I never wanted to step into. I wanted to people to see the dark arts, the dark arts of Africa that you never see. I wanted to show our industriousness, to wear our own brands our own clothes, bring all that flavour with the London sound. I’m about bringing the Ghanaian culture and then fusing it to what we have in England.
When did ONIPA first begin?
Me and Tom [Excell] started ONIPA three years ago. Ten years ago I was doing reggae with a sound system. Someone booked me for a gig and by coincidence, I was introduced to Tom. We became friends. He was doing Nubiyan Twist and I was doing Zongo. I’ve always shared that heavy bass sound but with a traditional approach to it. That sound you can rock to but still has elements of traditional and African influence.
It came together straight away. For 10 years we’ve been building these sounds. We have a friendship not just based on the music, but for the sounds of the future. We just said: ‘we love this sound, let’s just give it a try’. And it just became a thing and everyone is now gravitating towards it.
Why did is your new release Tapes of Utopia billed as a ‘mixtape’?
You know in Ghana, people are hustling, selling tapes on the streets. The album, LP has become a bit weird for us. We thought we should do like they do in Africa and slam a couple of tunes onto a tape and there you go! It’s a mixture of tunes with a lot of hosting in between. It’s going to be on an actual tape. We’ll have a new album next year, which I’m so excited by. Plus we’re touring in the UK.
Find them at onipa.co.uk.
