Afua Asantewaa Owusu Aduonum
Broadcaster, event planner, and entrepreneur Afua Asantewaa Owusu Aduonum has indicated that she does not like staying in her comfort zone.
This trait, she told Accra 100.5 FM's after-drive (Akwaaba program) host Sammy Brown, is one of the many reasons that led her to take on the Guinness World Records (GWR) singing marathon in December 2023.
Asantewaa sang only Ghanaian songs for 126 hours and 52 minutes, attempting to break Sunil Waghmare's 105-hour record from 2012.
She told Brown another reason she made the attempt was to project Ghana's music and, finally, to demonstrate that diverse people, including Africans like herself, can clinch GWR glory.
The 33-year-old said: "I keep saying this: I don't like being comfortable. I want to always be doing something, and it should be something impactful and very positive.
"I really love music, and when I went to their [GWR] website, I could have attempted a lot of challenges. I noticed some people were record holders for doing peculiar things for 28 hours, 72 hours, etc., but when you want to do something to elevate your country, you must look at something important that a lot of people have great interest in, which is our Ghanaian music.
"When I saw the record – 105 hours – I told myself there have been challenges I've gone through that I never thought I could overcome, so I encouraged myself to do this for the music industry and to also satisfy my passion and curiosity. I mean, we see the Guinness World Records as a worldwide thing, but oddly, when you visit the page, it's a lot of white people who are record holders. You rarely see Africans doing something like this, and so I dared myself and made the attempt."
Asantewaa, from December 24, 2023, sang for five days. She is currently waiting for GWR's verdict, as she has paid for a fast-tracked assessment.
