With the release of the all new Batakari album, we have been back on a pretty serious Ata Kak kick over here at Drift. So this Sunday is all about Obaa Sima, one of the most characterful and idiosyncratic albums that we’ve ever heard.
If you don’t know the background story, this one really is a cracker! Pure bangers on a cassette and a lot of serendipity. Obaa Sima was self‐released in 1994 by Ghanaian artist Ata Kak (Yaw Atta-Owusu), originally pressed as just 50 cassette copies and virtually unheard beyond local circulation. Now we might get this wrong - which is shameful as we’ve heard him talk about this a handful of times - but musicologist Brian Shimkovitz purchased a cassette copy of Obaa Sima during a year he spent living in Ghana.
“I first went to Ghana in 2002 as a study abroad project for a semester. And while I was there, I started doing research about the music industry. I was going around collecting tapes because it was 2002, and at that time, the majority of the music available on the market was on cassette. So I would go to shops, or I would go to the areas in the market where they sell lots of music. Or if I saw someone wandering around the neighborhood selling cassettes, like on a wheelbarrow or a bicycle or something, I would just check it out. And I would sometimes buy things because they were really cheap. They were only like 75 cents or a dollar each, so I just bought a lot! And one of the things that I bought on that first trip, that I came across in Cape Coast, was this Ata Kak tape which I didn't really listen to until much much later.”
Obaa Sima would become the first post on Shimkovitz’s Awesome Tapes From Africa blog (“You may never hear anything like this elsewhere”) and it, as they say, blew up! Shimkovitz would then spend nearly a decade tracking down the man, leading to a full release of the album in 2015.
Born Yaw Atta-Owusu in Kumasi, Ghana, Ata Kak migrated to Canada and pursued music from a position outside the mainstream Ghanaian industry. His early work included highlife-influenced projects, but with Obaa Sima he moved into a lo-tech, home studio mode, using second-hand drum machines, built-in synthesiser sounds and self-recorded sessions, crafting a distinct sound that stood apart from both his Ghanaian contemporaries and North American electronic acts. Layering simple preset rhythms from affordable or second-hand gear, he built bare-bones synth tracks and delivered vocal flows (predominantly) in the Ghanaian language Twi - often at a breakneck pace and over minimalist backings. Apparently the cassette’s original DAT source had been degraded, and during production Ata Kak reportedly sped things up in post-production - resulting in a slightly helium-toned vocal timbre and a raw, ‘unpolished’ presentation that nonetheless contributes to the album’s charm.
Rooted in DIY ingenuity, Obaa Sima is a singular fusion of Ghanaian highlife, rap, and early DIY dance music. Its rediscovery and rerelease demonstrate the power of archival labels in surfacing overlooked voices, it is absolutely one of the most remarkable rediscoveries of the 21st century.
Pure raw inventiveness, with synth hooks, crunching drum machines, and headlong, unselfconscious joy. It’ll get everything pumping.