Batakari [LP] (Lily Pad Green Marble Vinyl Deluxe Edition)

Ata Kak - Batakari [LP] (Lily Pad Green Marble Vinyl Deluxe Edition)

Ata Kak created a peculiar slice of Ghanaian music history with his debut album a€œObaa Sima. While it barely made a ripple at the time of its release in 1994, the cassette found a new life online in 2006. A not-so-underground cult obsession grew after it appeared on the blog Awesome Tapes From Africa as its very first post, a sort of manifesto for the project. His addictive amalgam of left-field electronic music and Twi-language hiplife reached surprising levels of awareness among music fans of many stripes. The mystery behind the musicians identity grew. Eventually Yaw Atta-Owusu came out of the shadows, from his quiet home in Kumasi, to tour the world playing high-energy, sweat-soaked performances at major festivals like Glastonbury, SA³nar and Pop Montreal. _x000B__x000B_Now, for the first time since 1994, Ata Kak releases new music. Honed in studios around Kumasi over the last several years, the songs feature the rapper-singers acrobatic rap, signature scatting, dramatic drums and even traditional Akan harp. The compositions are more ambitious than his earlier work, with more complex arrangements and layered harmonies. Ata Kaks new songs are also the natural expression of a restless artista€"he is a prolific poet and author of a half-dozen books, as well as an active gardener and busy painter. _x000B__x000B_Born in Ghana in 1960, Ata Kak wasnt always involved in music. But his travels and openness to the world lead him into the music industry. While living in Germany, he was invited to play drums in a reggae band and subsequently played in highlife bands in Ontario after moving to the Toronto area. He recorded a€œObaa Sima there at his home studio and released it in Ghana in 1994. He didnt participate in music much in the intervening years until a€œObaa Sima was reissued in 2015. He started performing his song live with the help of a brilliant cast of London-based musicians and has toured three continents and played to thousands of fans in venues of all kinds.