Interview with Morgan Heritage: “We want to come back!”

Jamaican reggae group Third World once reminisced about a visit to Nigeria in their song Lagos Jump: “Oiay Efusa, said the Oba to me, Rasta Messenger, you are welcome!” That was in 1983. Their compatriots in the group Morgan Heritage may well be doing something similar years from now when they reflect on their first visit to Sierra Leone in 2010. “We feel connected to the land here, and we feel connected to the people,” says Peter Morgan in their interview with Afrofusion TV. After their two shows at the National Stadium in Freetown, Morgan Heritage are headed home, but would love to return in April this year to join in Sierra Leone’s 50th Independence Anniversary events. Needless to say, they are welcome!

Peter, Una and Lukes of Morgan Heritage speak with Anne Marie

Afrofusion would love to say thanks to Morgan Heritage’s manager, and also to technical director Sam Jones for providing us with the video clips from their show at the stadium. There are photos from that event that you can check out in my previous post. Bless…

Phil Ade and Levelz Interview at DC Diaspora Liv Nightclub Event

Phil Ade with Di'Ja

By the time young pop singer Di’Ja opened the set with a new song “Private Show,” from her upcoming album, the crowd was ready to get down. The show that was billed as a DC Diaspora Thanksgiving event lived up to its Diaspora name simply by virtue of the performing lineup. Di’Ja has Sierra Leonean, Nigerian and Lebanese ancestry, Levelz is from Nigeria, and US-born Phil Ade is from Nigerian and Grenadian stock. But even though Di’Ja amply warmed up the masses with her catchy pop

Interview: Gyptian Wants to Work with African Artists

 

Gyptian performing at Crossroads Nightclub

 

I promised to bring you snippets of Afrofusion TV’s interview with Gyptian… Voila! check it out below! It’s a fairly common “problem” with music artists. You record a song, and fans think someone else sang it. For African and West Indian artists, the cross-pollination in music styles and genres makes the occurrence more frequent, and even less surprising. So for Nigerian singer Tuface Idibia, his worldwide hit “African Queen” got attributed by many a fan to Jamaican reggae star Gyptian!

Another Sneak Peak

Promised to bring you a quick preview of what AFROfusion TV was up to at Zanzibar on the Waterfront in Washington, DC when Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars came into town on tour… You can check it out below! Thanks to super concert and artist promoter Raymond “Juju” Paris for facilitating it all! We arrived just as they were getting ready to do their soundcheck. Their tour manager Alex was gracious enough to allow our cameras extensive access. And Reuben and his bandmates were patient enough to sit down with us for a chit-chat – even though they were hungry as heck (they had been promised some good rice and cassava leaves by Juju.) We will have much more on the concert, including some of what we spoke about with Diamond Saj, who opened the show. AFROfusion host Khadia has already revealed more photos from the night in a previous post. Stay tuned, it’s all coming soon…

Related Articles

• Slideshow: Surprising beauty amidst struggle in Sierra Leone (thegrio.com)
• Sierra Leone native now excels in Bronx (nypost.com)

Khadia with the SLRAS and Diamond Saj

Honestly I didn’t know much about the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars before Wednesday when I was told that I would be interviewing them. But after preparing for their interview I was very excited to meet all of them. They truly exceeded my expectations, I had a lot of fun backstage with them! They are truly inspiring, they have come a long way. They are proof that you must never give up and you must SMILE, through all circumstances. I think their success is attributed to how humble they are!! If you are not familiar with them you should take a chance to read a little about their history. They have been on Oprah and MTV.

It was also a pleasant surprise to get the opportunity to interview and meet Diamond Saj who I had heard all about from the youth while in Sierra Leone. I hope through the pictures  you can get a small sense of how much fun we all had. If you have an opportunity to go and watch any of them make sure to take it! They were very impressive on stage! I couldn’t help but dance! I have become a fan of both the SLRAS and Diamond Saj (previously known as Daddy Saj).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Making the Most of it

Well, disappointment and setbacks always come with this TV biz, don’t they? We had our contacts, but they were unable to come through for us at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. So, we can’t bring you good photos and video of the Distant Relatives tour. We considered this really important for our webisode on the development of Africa’s music scene, and how Africa’s cultures are featuring on the world stage. Oh well… However, while milling around outside the venue feeling rather crestfallen, we ran into hip hop intellectual and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson! We walked right up to him and thrust our camera in his face, so he proceeded to break it down for us about “Distant Relatives,” the connection between Trenton and Trenchtown and Freetown, etc., etc…

Here’s a brief preview clip of Michael Eric Dyson chatting with AFROfusion’s Khadia Conteh:

More of what he said coming soon on AFROfusion TV… Stay tuned!

Previews

Promised to bring you sample clips from what we’ve got coming up on AFROfusion TV…. Well, here’s a short one put together at the P-Square concert in Silver Spring, Maryland, when they were on their U.S. tour. Needless to say, they rocked the house! I recalled how a regular audience member had told me how impressed he was with what he saw these guys do in the UK. There’s no denying: the energy in that auditorium was raw, their performance was top class.