Is Kwaku Sakyi Addo also among the musicians?

One could easily pin a number of things on renowned Retired Ghanaian International Journalist and Chief Executive of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication, Kwaku Sakyi Addo, but to think of him as a musician is far-fetched.

Kwaku is arguably one of the standards when it comes to journalism in Africa and his mastery in the field of communications has effortlessly earned him high profile jobs like Communications Director of the defunct AVRL and currently CEO of Ghana Chamber of Telecoms.

This was after working with renowned international media organisations like BBC, Reuters, CNN, Bridge Press, and several others, as well as local ones like Ghana News Agency, The Ghanaian Chronicle and Joy FM.

Adom News Editor Nii Narku Dowuona, himself a singer, recently caught up with Kwaku in his Telecoms Chamber office, where he dropped a verbal hint of his musical prowess.

Frankly, a meeting between the Telecoms Chamber Boss (Kwaku) and an award winning Telecoms Correspondent (Nii Narku) could only be about telecoms and not music.

But Kwaku took a shot by asking “do you still sing?” and the answer was in the affirmative; then he dropped the jaw-dropping hint “we have to do a performance together one of these days because I play the Saxophone.”

Kwaku was on the telephone when he said he played the saxophone so Nii Narku might have assumed he meant to say “I am on the telephone” because the two words rhyme.

But he finished the call eventually and spoke more clearly “I play the Saxophone – I have been learning it for the past two years and I even opened the Motown Rocks show at the National Theatre recently – I played the school’s song on my Saxophone.”

Nii’s jaw practically dropped and he screamed “you don’t mean it?!” But yes, he meant it – he sent for one of his three Saxophones from his car and played five songs in a row to an audience of one right in his office.

That was the passion with which he is into his Sax.

Kwaku said he believed that of all the gifts God gave humans, he gave each person the ability to play at least one musical instrument.

“I taught myself how to play the harmonica (mouth organ) as a teenager but I had always wanted to learn how to play the Saxophone,” he said.

He said he thought the Sax was a difficult instrument to learn so he opted for Trombone, but his music instructor, Laryea Torto from National Symphony Orchestra encouraged him to learn the Sax instead.

Kwaku said for the past two years he has been practicing between three to five hours every weekend, adding “I enjoy doing it and like every other thing in life if you commit yourself to it, you will master it in no time.”

He said in two years he has about 40 songs in his repertoire, and he can read the music scores, which is a difficult thing for some musicians who have been in the industry for decades.

Kwaku said apart from the Motown Rocks concert, he has also played for his alma mater, Achimota School, for the birthdays of friends and for family.

“But I don’t see myself as musician – I am still a music student and I am willing to play for charity concerts as well,” he said.

Kwaku said he knows of no one in his family who has anything to do with music so he would be the first.

“But my children, Ofeibea and Ohene Kofi are also learning how to play the piano and Ofeibea is also learning to play the violin as well,” he said.

You could be getting an invite to a Sakyi-Addo family concert soon because Kwaku is not dismissing the possibility of playing a full concert sometime in the future.