Six years ago, while visiting Ghana, musician Derrick N. Ashong heard a Ghanaian man use the n-word.
“The American hip-hop scene had not only made it acceptable but had also made it cool,” says Ashong, who is a member of the Boston-bred band Soulfege. “[That man’s] whole experience of African-America was its MTV and BET videos, music, artists, and movies, so how would he know about racism? How would he know about [US] poverty? How would he know about unemployment?”
The encounter planted a seed in Ashong’s mind. Hip-hop, he felt, was teaching Africans that African-Americans were rich and violent; the US media, conversely, was teaching Americans that Africans were poor and helpless. His band was in a position to help change misperceptions on both sides.
Soulfege has one foot in Africa, one in America. Its core members — Ashong, Jonathan M. Gramling, and Kelley Nicole Johnson — were brought together by their alma mater, Harvard, where all had been in the Kuumba Singers, a gospel choir. But Ashong was born in Ghana, and many of the band’s lyrics reflect a connection to the African diaspora. “Yaa (dis be fo radio),” for example, includes lyrics in Ga (spoken in Ghana), as well as in Portuguese and English.
Bolstered by a traveling ensemble of anywhere from two to seven additional musicians, Soulfege’s soulful vocals and harmonies, warm horns, and engaging lyrics have attracted fans from Massachusetts to West Africa. Its members realized they had the platform to reach ears not only with their music — a fusion of thumping African music and rhythms, sweet reggae breezes, funk, and hip-hop — but also with their message.
The band, which plays Bill’s Bar tomorrow night, “believes in things bigger than itself,” says Ashong.
And so was born a project Soulfege calls the , an umbrella title that encompasses efforts as diverse as band-led workshops for students, activists, and entrepreneurs; a website (sweetmother.org ) that serves as a gathering place for people to discuss issues and watch videos; documentary filmmaking; and an international hip-hop competition.
SMT, as they call it, takes its name from the traditional West African ballad “Sweet Mother.” On its debut album, 2004’s “Heavy Structured,” the band reworks the song into three different tracks, each a tribute to the loving bonds between a mother and her child and a citizen and his roots.
“Part of the vision behind SMT is that if you can take a kid from Ghana, and through music, through art and culture, connect him with a kid from Roxbury, then maybe he will learn that BET isn’t telling him the entire story,” Ashong says. “If that kid from Roxbury could meet someone who grew up actually seeing warfare, actually living in a refugee camp, actually grew up a child soldier, maybe that would help both of them see the world differently.”
Soulfege has performed in Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Trinidad, Jamaica, and England, among other countries. And its ideas are starting to spread. In January, for example, an SMT chapter formed in Seattle after its members met Soulfege at a conference on identity at Harvard Law School.
Ashong networked with youth on a trip to Sweden, and they are now talking to their peers in Ghana and Jamaica through the website. SMT is also partnering with organizations that will increase its visibility, such as SplashLife (which puts together “global campaigns for communities that are youthcentric,” says CEO Marisa Martin) and Eurythmic Dave Stewart’s company Weapons of Mass Entertainment, which works with artists and companies that use pop culture to create social change. (Stewart is also the executive producer on Soulfege’s next album, tentatively titled “Afropolitan,” due out in the fall.)
On Oct. 1, with a project called “Take Back the Mic,” Soulfege will begin a trip around the country in a biofuel bus to create a documentary challenging the portrayal of black culture in hip-hop. They will perform, hold workshops, and invite people to speak on film. They hope to release the documentary Oct. 28. And an international project, “Voice of the Streets,” will allow hip-hop artists worldwide to represent their cultures and compete in what Sara Teklua, the producer of SMT films, describes as “a World Cup or an Olympics of Hip-Hop.” It is scheduled to begin in 2008.
Ashong hopes these and other SMT projects will help present the music and culture of Africa and America as they really are. With the current glorification of gangsta culture in hip-hop, there’s a long way to go, he says.
“Let me tell you about reality,” says Ashong, who has lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as Ghana and the United States . “I grew up in the Middle East. I used to go to school with a gas mask in my bag. . . . When I think about what it is to live in the real world and what makes someone ‘hard-core,’ I have a different perspective.”
The Rev. Conrad B. Tillard, the founder of Movement for CHHANGE (Conscious Hip-Hop Activism Necessary For Global Empowerment), agrees that there’s a problem.
“You’ve got record companies putting millions of dollars behind nihilistic, fratricidal, and sophomoric ideas and concepts,” said Tillard.
“The sad thing is this doesn’t really reflect the values of average Americans. It certainly doesn’t reflect the values of average black Americans.”
The projects will also show that Africa is more than a continent in need of charity. “The club scene in Accra is 10 times hotter than it is in Boston,” Ashong says. “What I want people to hear through music is the soul of Africa.”
Gramling believes that the collective power — and the joyous music — of SMT will be able to bring down social and cultural barriers.
“For me it’s just the beginning to talk about sweet Mother Africa,” says Gramling. “It seems like tragedy will always bring people together. Why can’t celebration bring people together, too?”
Soulfege has performed in Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Trinidad, Jamaica, and England, among other countries. And its ideas are starting to spread. In January, for example, an SMT chapter formed in Seattle after its members met Soulfege at a conference on identity at Harvard Law School. Ashong networked with youth on a trip to Sweden, and they are now talking to their peers in Ghana and Jamaica through the website.
SMT is also partnering with organizations that will increase its visibility, such as SplashLife (which puts together “global campaigns for communities that are youthcentric,” says CEO Marisa Martin) and Eurythmic Dave Stewart’s company Weapons of Mass Entertainment, which works with artists and companies that use pop culture to create social change. (Stewart is also the executive producer on Soulfege’s next album, tentatively titled “Afropolitan,” due out in the fall.)
On Oct. 1, with a project called “Take Back the Mic,” Soulfege will begin a trip around the country in a biofuel bus to create a documentary challenging the portrayal of black culture in hip-hop. They will perform, hold workshops, and invite people to speak on film. They hope to release the documentary Oct. 28. And an international project, “Voice of the Streets,” will allow hip-hop artists worldwide to represent their cultures and compete in what Sara Teklua, the producer of SMT films, describes as “a World Cup or an Olympics of Hip-Hop.” It is scheduled to begin in 2008.
Ashong hopes these and other SMT projects will help present the music and culture of Africa and America as they really are. With the current glorification of gangsta culture in hip-hop, there’s a long way to go, he says.
“Let me tell you about reality,” says Ashong, who has lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as Ghana and the United States . “I grew up in the Middle East. I used to go to school with a gas mask in my bag. . . . When I think about what it is to live in the real world and what makes someone ‘hard-core,’ I have a different perspective.”
The Rev. Conrad B. Tillard, the founder of Movement for CHHANGE (Conscious Hip-Hop Activism Necessary For Global Empowerment), agrees that there’s a problem.
“You’ve got record companies putting millions of dollars behind nihilistic, fratricidal, and sophomoric ideas and concepts,” said Tillard.
“The sad thing is this doesn’t really reflect the values of average Americans. It certainly doesn’t reflect the values of average black Americans.”
The projects will also show that Africa is more than a continent in need of charity. “The club scene in Accra is 10 times hotter than it is in Boston,” Ashong says. “What I want people to hear through music is the soul of Africa.”
Gramling believes that the collective power — and the joyous music — of SMT will be able to bring down social and cultural barriers.
“For me it’s just the beginning to talk about sweet Mother Africa,” says Gramling. “It seems like tragedy will always bring people together. Why can’t celebration bring people together, too?.
