Controversial Song Puts Tuobodom On World Map

Nkasei Hiplife Artist

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 Source: BBC

Ghanaians defend 'backward 'song

BBC -- A Ghanaian band has defended a hit song and video that poke fun at a rural town, portraying locals as backward.

Angry elders in the small western Ghanaian town of Tuobodom campaigned to get the song banned, saying it was making all their lives a misery.

But controversy over the song, which showed Tuobodom residents mesmerised by a tarred road, made it a bigger hit.

The male duo, Nkasse, told the BBC the song referred to events some 80 years ago and was not about inhabitants now.

"We don't find anything in the song which should make them mad," Naa K and Shy told the BBC's Network Africa.

"The video had to show how the town might have looked back then," he said.

"We can't sing a song about a town 80 years back, and go and shoot the modern place," they said.

However, students who come from the town are said to be keeping their birthplace to themselves at campuses across the country for fear of ridicule.

And teachers from the village who are working in other parts of the country are reported to have asked to be sent home because students have been making fun of them.

Other Ghanaians, though, have expressed a desire to visit the previously little-known place.