1.The First Record I Bought
The first album I bought was on cassette. It was a Bob Marley album with the song ‘One Love’ – I bought it because it was playing on the radio almost every day and it meant a lot to me because of the South African apartheid. I couldn’t understand why Nelson Mandela was in prison; why can’t we love one another? I use to ask my mum these big questions when I was a small child.
2.The Last Record I Bought
I just downloaded the album Asem Ben Nie by a famous friend of mine, Fatau Keita – he’s a musician from my country; I saw one of his music videos and it really inspired me to download the whole album.
3.The First Thing I Recorded
I was discovered by one of Bob Marley’s promoters who took me to Europe for the first time through a Denmark cultural exchange program. My first recording was in Ghana, where I got an idea about the policemen standing on the roadside – I made an indirect educative song with a hook line, ‘Hey Police’, which made me very famous, The video of the song was shown every day on the national TV in Ghana before the news.
4.The Last Thing I Recorded
My last recording was in Ghana, with my enthusiastic up-and-coming Ghanaian musicians – they adore me and I adore them very much the same as my Australian musicians. We did a gig at the famous place called The +233. It was a live recording – the sound, the performances, the engineer Nii Adotey Prosound Ankrah was so good that everything went from the mixing board straight to CD; I am so proud about that.
5.The Record That Changed My Life
The song that changed my life was Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’. There’s a lot of blaming, whinging, self-hatred and more in the world and the lyrics in that song are so powerful – he says, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds’’. I really love Bob Marley so much – ever since he passed away, every year, whichever country I am in, I do a Bob Marley tribute gig to show my respect to his message. Some people tell me that I am the next Bob Marley – I appreciate the comments but I am nothing special; the message can pass through anyone if you allow it.
Afro Moses supports Peter Tosh and Lucky Dube onSaturday June 25 atThe Basement.
