Safo Newman
According to new Ghana music sensation Safo Newman, his music journey started in 2019.
It was “when I released a song for Bureau of Ghana Languages (BGL),” he explained.
Revealing it was a song titled Brofo (English), Newman said he did the song for “patriotism” sake, and approached BGL with it.
He noted BGL is “responsible for promoting our culture – the language aspect”.
Brofo, he explained, decries “how we cherish the English language above the local dialects” and how “we are losing how fluent we are in our countries dialects”.
He cited how it is common for Ghanaians to “intersperse” conversations in local languages with English due to a lack of command of indigenous languages.
Singer-songwriter Safo Newman noted that when he created Brofo and gave it to the BGL, he “was doing everything alone,” and without a team.
“When they accepted it [Brofo], I became excited and did another one for National Commission on Culture, that is [the song] Made in Ghana,” he revealed.
He explained, Made in Ghana, was about the xenophilia for foreign goods “above our own products, the indigenous products, the traditional ones we have here”.
He credited his sense of patriotism to his “upbringing” and growing up outside the city.
“I didn’t grow up in the city, here. The city has the Western influence a lot,” he said. “But in the villages, the culture is still in tact there.”
Safo Newman, of the Akan ethnic group, revealed he hails from Sekyere Kwaman in the Ashanti Region.
The soft-spoken Newman who performs mostly in the Twi dialect of the Akan language said he has an album titled Early Music, comprising “my first singles”. The tape was engineered by one Kwesi Plus Production, he added.
“And then after that, I moved on to Smooth Beats,” he said.
Both Kwesi Plus and Smooth Beats are from Sekyere Kwamang, he also noted.
Safo Newman said he is a career technology junior high school (JHS) teacher at Cosmos Basic School in Lapaz. He explained career technology is pre-technical skills rebranded.
He spoke to the Culture Daily crew of 3Music.
Newman has come to sudden public notice because of his November 2023 release titled Akokoa (Child), which rebukes religious hypocrisy and the maltreatment of foster children. His admirers include legendary music producer Da Hammer and music superstar Sarkodie.
