Kumerica – The madness of the movement

At the start of the decade, drill music arrived on the shores of Ghana and it found a home in the heartlands of Ghana in the Ashanti Regional capital of Kumasi.

The rap style got a Ghanaian named Asakaa and young artists like Yaw Tog, Jay Bahd, O’Kenneth etc. waving the flag in the second city.

The internet has created a space good or bad where kids can see in real time what’s happening in Cape Town, the latest trend in Sao Paolo and Sydney and this is how drill music found its way to Ghana and Pop Smoke (American Rapper) can be considered influential to the Asakaa movement.

The Asakaa wave led to a viral video by Yaw Tog, “Sore”, which brought global attention to this new Ghanaian drill and collaborations with UK artists like Stormzy and Headie One.

The growth and popularity of drill music or Asakaa even got Kumasi renamed as Kumerica by fans and the city’s suburbs and neighbourhoods named after American cities and areas.

This is not the first time Hip-hop has been combined with Ghanaian music. In the 90’s, Reggie Rockstone created Hip Life which was the combination of Hip-hop and the local Hi Life music and this created a lane for the acceptance of Hip-hop amongst the Ghanaian youth.

Drill music is quite a controversial type of music that is quite violent and it's being blamed for violence on the streets of Chicago, Brooklyn and London. But with all the controversies, there are positives that can be taken from it too.

Yaw Tog, the face of Asakaa, just graduated high school which shows he is an intelligent kid and a good influence for the fans and followers.

Music provides entertainment, jobs and also brings joy to communities and the world in general. Without music who knows what these kids could have been doing with their lives?

There is however something about Kumerica that is not all positive. The name Kumerica is a combination of Kumasi and America but the problem is why does Kumasi have to be America for the city to be important?

Neo-colonialism according to definition is the practice of using economic imperialism, globalisation, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence a country instead of the previous colonial methods of imperialism or indirect political control and the term “Kumerica” is a good example.

Vera Nunning in her book “Fictions of Empire” says that a colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one's own. The mentality of the youth and people of Africa are a real problem and this needs to be changed.

Naming cities and areas after the oppressor is a backward way of thinking. We need to learn to appreciate our culture because that is what made us who we are.

Do you think anybody in the states would change their town and city names to Ghanaian towns? The worst thing was the Americanisation of the Ashanti Flag and the passport. If the term Kumerica was to bring attention to Kumasi why not push Oseikrom to the world? We need to promote ourselves because nobody will do it for us.

Yaa Asantewa & Nana Prempeh went to war with the British to avoid colonialism and protect our culture. I understand things change but we need to learn to love our own. It’s an abomination to compare the Komfo Anokye statue in the heart of the proud city to the statue of Liberty.

Year of the return showed the interest in people returning to learn the African culture. We need to love our culture instead of adopting those of foreigners who have kept in the dark and kept us ignorant and I hope the Asakaa movement can help change this.