Blog March 21, 2017
Ed Sheeran Singing in Twi and Other Things I Never Wanted to Hear
So. Let me preface this by saying I know next to nothing about Ed Sheeran. In my head, he is best known as a musical plagiarist who steals from very well-known songs in very obvious ways and doesn't know how to hide his resources well enough to avoid controversy. His biggest hit, "Thinking Out Loud," is such an obvious rip-off of "Let's Get It On" that I'm actually happy the family of Marvin Gaye is suing him. Sheeran just tacitly admitted that he stole the melody of his latest hit "Shape of You" from TLC's "No Scrubs" by giving the original writers credit on his "new" song. I'm sure there's more to Ed than plagiary, right?
Yes! Cultural appropriation! I knew it! I'm interested in a different song on Ed's new album, "Bibia Be Ye Ye," produced by Dr. Luke's protege Benny Blanco and Ghanaian producer Killbeatz, and co-written with Fuse ODG. You might remember Fuse from a couple little mega-hits, "Antenna" and "Azonto," from a few years back. You better remember Fuse...
So, Ed went to Ghana to hang with his "mate" Fuse. They wrote some songs, had some fun and did that thing most white people go to Africa to do: Charity, that is. According to Ghanaian blog OMG Voice, Fuse brought Sheeran to Ghana to check out his manager Mr. Hackett's school/orphanage project in Akosombo, which is connected to the U.K.-based Christian charity Wood World Missions.
Anyway, Ed wrote some songs in Twi with Fuse ODG. Here's one he performed on French TV:
In that clip, and also this one, you'll notice that Ed says that Twi is a Ghanaian dialect. It isn't. I mean, he's right, in a way, because Twi language is a dialect of the Akan macrolanguage, which also includes Fante, and is also spoken on the Ivorian side the British colonial borders that divide the precolonial Ashanti Kingdom. Anyway, on the bright side, according to Akornefa Akyea--Afropop's in-house resource on all things Ghanaian--Ed's Twi does sound a bit like Kojo Antwi's "brofolized," that is anglicized Twi.
That tune didn't make it on the album, but this one did:
Fuse gushed all about it on Facebook: "Bibia Be Ye Ye" meaning 'All Will Be Well"... Serious Afrobeats vibes. This album is something else 
👏 Africa on the rise!! #ThisIsNewAfrica"
I beg to differ. Last I checked, Bisa Kdei, Tiwa Savage, Davido, Sauti Sol are #ThisIsNewAfrica goals--whatever that means. In what way day does it lift up or cause to rise the continent of Africa?! This song sounds exactly like music made by white people with a very generalized, vague idea of what African pop music sounds like. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" anyone? How about a combination of two songs off Paul Simon's Graceland?
Anyway. This album, overall is pretty bad, but it has some other non-blue-eyed soul appropriations on it too: There's a few generic Irish folk tunes, and a couple of very, very bad rap songs, sounding like a much worse version of The Streets (who were actually pretty good.) "Bibia Be Ye Ye" comes right after a corny pop song in which Ed implores us to "pretend we're dancing in the streets in Barcelona," with a verse in butchered Spanish, full of clichés. Ed Sheeran, I see your "multiculturism" or whatever you want to call your cultural appropriation. I challenge you to dig deeper, or don't got there at all. That's all.
Anyway, Ed wrote some songs in Twi with Fuse ODG. Here's one he performed on French TV:
In that clip, and also this one, you'll notice that Ed says that Twi is a Ghanaian dialect. It isn't. I mean, he's right, in a way, because Twi language is a dialect of the Akan macrolanguage, which also includes Fante, and is also spoken on the Ivorian side the British colonial borders that divide the precolonial Ashanti Kingdom. Anyway, on the bright side, according to Akornefa Akyea--Afropop's in-house resource on all things Ghanaian--Ed's Twi does sound a bit like Kojo Antwi's "brofolized," that is anglicized Twi.
That tune didn't make it on the album, but this one did:
Fuse gushed all about it on Facebook: "Bibia Be Ye Ye" meaning 'All Will Be Well"... Serious Afrobeats vibes. This album is something else 👏 Africa on the rise!! #ThisIsNewAfrica"
I beg to differ. Last I checked, Bisa Kdei, Tiwa Savage, Davido, Sauti Sol are #ThisIsNewAfrica goals--whatever that means. In what way day does it lift up or cause to rise the continent of Africa?! This song sounds exactly like music made by white people with a very generalized, vague idea of what African pop music sounds like. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" anyone? How about a combination of two songs off Paul Simon's Graceland?
Anyway. This album, overall is pretty bad, but it has some other non-blue-eyed soul appropriations on it too: There's a few generic Irish folk tunes, and a couple of very, very bad rap songs, sounding like a much worse version of The Streets (who were actually pretty good.) "Bibia Be Ye Ye" comes right after a corny pop song in which Ed implores us to "pretend we're dancing in the streets in Barcelona," with a verse in butchered Spanish, full of clichés. Ed Sheeran, I see your "multiculturism" or whatever you want to call your cultural appropriation. I challenge you to dig deeper, or don't got there at all. That's all.