Song of the Day: Adagya by Ata Kak

So Ata Kak is the very first African artist featuring my song of the days thingos! He’s from Ghana which is on the west coast, if you’ve forgotten where that is? For me, I think Ata Kak would easily be my fave complete unknown artist at the time of seeing them live at any festival anytime in my life! Seeing him live only a couple of years ago at Meredith’s Golden Plains Festival and he was unbelievably wicked great to say the least. His very first American tour starts next month so please go and check it out, if you can?

For record label Awesome Tapes From Africa founder Brian Shimkovitz, Ata Kak’s Obaa Sima album was the tape that kick start everything for him. It did taken Brain something like five years to track down the man who made the music on a tape he picked up randomly at a roadside stall years earlier. This tape was first produced in 1994 which only had around 50 copies were made, it like a testing the market with the initial pressing but no one showed any interest. Amazingly somehow Shimkovitz found his copy in Cape Coast, Ghana in 2002 but most likely was a pirated copy of the original pressings. Awesome Tapes From Africa finally reissued Obaa Sima in 2015. Adagya is track number three on album Obaa Sima and once again can be found on Bandcamp website:

 

An old photo of Ata Kak

Cheers 🙂