Fuse ODG

‘I ’ m here for Ghana

Fuse ODG is known for joining the dots from the music of his birthplace Ghana to the urban sounds of grime and hip-hop that filled his teenage years in the UK, but along with the music comes plans to build schools, organise festivals and rebuild national pride.

With its irrepressible Afrobeat rhythms, Fuse ODG’s music has always been a celebration of the Kumasiborn artist’s Ghanaian roots. It’s been there from his 2013 breakthrough hit ‘Azonto’, that took the West African dance worldwide, to his most recent EP, Road to Ghana Vol 1, that showcases some of the country’s hottest emerging musical talent.

But Fuse – born Nana Richard Abiona, the ODG in his stage name stands for Off The Ground, a musical collective he was once part of – champions his homeland in much more than music. This year began with the second annual TINA (This Is New Africa) Festival, in Accra’s Labadi Beach resort. The threeday event was organised by Fuse and included his biggest live music concert, a series of discussions on how to take Africa beyond aid – with speakers including President Nana Akufo-Addo – and a Kente Party celebrating the visionary artists, designers and thinkers that are changing perceptions of the continent.

Akufo-Addo declaring 2019 as the Year of Return to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of African slaves in America and to welcome descendants to their spiritual home has catalysed the festival as well as much of Fuse’s recent musical output. His second album, New Africa Nation, released last year, includes the song ‘Bra Fie’ (‘Come Home” in the Ghanaian Twi dialect), a duet with Jamaican reggae star Damian Marley, in which Fuse rallies: “Don’t forget where you are from.” It is a call to the African and Caribbean people, bonded by blood and history, to return to their beginnings.

Festival fundraising This Caribbean and African fusion extends to the two causes that will benefit from the festival and its fundraising drive. One is based in Ghana – the building of a secondary school in Akosombo – and chosen

by Fuse, while the other is the pick of Jamaican singer Chronixx and will see much-needed improvements carried out at Haile Selassie High School on the island.

Akosombo, a picturesque town on the banks of the Volta River, means a lot to Fuse. It is where his commitment to Ghana first took shape, despite living at the time in Mitcham, a southern suburb of London in the UK. His parents took him aged 11, along with his younger sister, from Ashtown, in Kumasi, to the UK in the hope of a better life. However, Fuse immediately missed the ease and freedom he was used to and felt that his race and heritage labelled him in the tough housing estate that was his new home.

“Growing up in Ashtown was a lot more free,” he says. “I remember being just a little boy and playing football in the middle of the road

with my friends. If there was a car coming, it would have to go around. “Kids wouldn’t get together to do that in Mitcham. It wasn’t deemed safe and too many black kids gathering in one place could get us into trouble.”

London life To socialise in a safe way, Fuse was involved in setting up Escape, a youth group in Mitcham. ‘I have always been a community kind of person,” he says. Along with being a place where young people could pursue their passions in music, art or sport, Escape was from the start, Fuse says, somewhere “you could help yourself by helping others”. In 2007, when Fuse was still in his teens, he and the youth group teamed up with a charity called Wood World Mission, run by a Ghanaian couple who had bought ON A MISSION Fuse ODG land in Akosombo. Together they fundraised to build a school on the site.

“It became our mission to help build a school,” says Fuse. “We gave as much as we could when my music blew up we gave a lot more.”

Fuse is certainly a big star now – one of the new wave of Afrobeats artists able to command worldwide acclaim. As his stage name suggests, his music is a fusion of the rap, grime, bashment and house that he’s grown up with in Mitcham and the Afrobeats and Hi-life he would hear on return trips to Ghana. He has done much to raise the global profile of Afrobeats with the genre now so mainstream Beyoncé drew heavily on its sounds and stars for her Lion King-inspired album, The Gift.

HERITAGE Fuse’s portfolio includes a festival, a fashion range and a children’s book

Collaborations Fuse has collaborated with big names himself, including dancehall legend Sean Paul and UK ‘artist of the decade’ Ed Sheeran, who flew out to Ghana to record at Fuse’s home studio. The co-written result, ‘Bibia Be Ye Ye’, on Sheeran’s recordbreaking album ÷, made Fuse the first Ghanaian to win a Grammy. The track was inspired by the pair’s visit to Akosombo. Sheeran has since donated a school bus to the project and Fuse’s musical success has meant he has been able to transform the school and the lives of its students over the years.

The first pupils to benefit from the new school are now at the age to move into secondary education, but the nearest secondary school is miles away and most families are not

Five of the best from Fuse ODG

Azonto Fuse’s breakout hit offers a stepby-step guide to the West African dance craze with a joyous beat you can’t help but move to.

Antenna Fuse’s 2014 hit spawned its own dance and roped in former Fugee Wyclef Jean. Never has being cheated on by your girlfriend sounded like so much fun.

able to afford the school fees. Fuse is now raising the funds to build a school to house them nearby.

The TINA involvement in the new schools extends beyond just the infrastructure. Each school has complemented the general curriculum with lessons in carpentry, beauty, cooking, filmmaking and music that explore students’ creativity and ready them for rewarding jobs. Efforts are also made to show pupils the proud heritage that shaped them.

Providing positive African role models for the younger generation has been key to Fuse’s other creative endeavours under the New African Nation banner. He has written a children’s story, ‘Nana Yaa and the Golden Stool’, which recounts the true tale of the late 19th century warrior queen of Ghana who led the Ashanti rebellion against British colonialism and has become a symbol of female emancipation and gender equality.

Nana Yaa also appears as one of the dark-skinned dolls available to buy from the New African Nation website. The aim is that parents will be encouraged to buy dolls for their daughters that represent their skin colour and so help them appreciate their race as they grow up.

Fashion line The website also sells Fuse’s fashion line – a range of modern men’s, women’s and children’s clothes in African print – and is part of a portfolio of creative endeavours for Fuse, among them his own record label, 3 Beat Records, which showcases

Ghana’s cultural roots to the world. For Fuse this is the way countries such as Ghana will inspire investment and tourism from around the world – by extolling the talent and heritage of the country, rather than relying on other’s help.

It’s a stance that has brought him into conflict with some high-profile aid projects in the past. In 2014 he pulled out of the re-recording of the Band Aid single because of the sense of pity for Africa he believed it evoked and the quick fix nature of its help.

With his own projects, Fuse wanted to celebrate Africa and ensure its people knew of its riches and potential. Just as the uncontained joy of Afrobeats music grabbed Fuse as a young man so he wanted to distil that positive energy in his projects. The Tina festival, NEW EP Fuse has worked with a string of local acts on Road To Ghana

There was a natural vibe spending time with these guys [on Road To Ghana]. I built a relationship with them. I really wanted to focus on Ghana talent with this one

which returned bigger than ever in January, is the culmination of that, championing the creative talents of the diaspora.

The festival and the Road To Ghana Vol 1 EP reveal the calibre of musical talent in the country. The EP’s six tracks include collaborations with artists such as Efya, Kwesi Arthur, M.anifest and ToyBoi.

Fuse enjoyed the experience and was impressed with the talent that came into his studio. “There are new guys out here who are killing it, like Quamina MP,” he says. “There was a natural vibe spending time with these guys. I built a relationship spending time with them. I really wanted to focus on Ghana talent with this one.”

As the EP’s title suggests, this is not the end of the project and with so many projects, such as the new secondary school in Akosombo, in the early stages, Fuse is dedicated to the homeland that has brought him and millions of others around the world a sense of belonging and freedom. As Fuse says: “I am here for Ghana.”

Road To Ghana Vol 1 is available on all digital music platforms to stream and download.

For more information on the TINA Festival and to donate to the causes it supports, visit tinafestival.com

For the full range of Fuse’s fashion line, black dolls and children’s books, visit newafricanation.com

T.I.N.A. The vibrancy, love and spirit of Africa distilled into a four-minute pop song.

Boa Me Featuring a Twi-singing Ed Sheeran, this song is pure sunshine

Osu The lead single from Road To Ghana Vol 1 takes on a serious subject – sex workers in the titular Accra suburb – in Fuse’s inimitably sweet and sensitive fashion.