Kumasi, GH · Ghanaian rap-highlife

Ata Kak

1 upcoming festival

The lost-tape legend himself — hyperactive Twi rap-highlife joy, rescued from an obscure cassette by Awesome Tapes From Africa and turned into a global dance party.

Ata Kak is the Ghanaian musician Yaw Atta-Owusu, who recorded the cassette Obaa Sima in the early 1990s, rapping in Twi over drum-machine highlife and boogie tracks he largely produced himself. The tape sold almost nothing on release. Brian Shimkovitz came across a copy in Ghana and posted it on his Awesome Tapes From Africa blog, where it built a following over several years before the label tracked Atta-Owusu down and reissued the album in 2015. That reissue led to his first international performances, decades after the recordings were made. The music is fast, lo-fi and relentlessly upbeat, with layered vocal hooks and cheap keyboard textures.

Ghanaian rap-highlife