Twenty-four-year-old songstress Sista Afia has said she
abandoned her nursing career in the United Kingdom (UK) and came to
Ghana to pursue a music career.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with NEWS-ONE on Thursday, she said music is her passion and that she will go to any length to fulfil it.
“I grew up in Accra and Kumasi. I went to Reverend John
Teye Memorial Institute and also Angel Educational Complex before
relocating to the UK. They dragged me to the UK by force. I was 15 then
and I did my high school and university in the UK. I read Nursing but I
came to Ghana because of music. That is how serious I am about my music
career,” she said.
“The first thing I have in mind is to link up with my
country. When I was a kid, I wanted to sing in Ghana. I wanted to be
someone who can inspire other people. I just wanted to be in Ghana.
Hopefully when things go well, I can go back,” she added.
“I am just a regular girl who likes to sing and do
something with my music career. I love music. That’s all I can say,” she
also said.
Born Franchesca Duncan Williams, Afia started singing at
church programmes and wedding ceremonies while in London. That caught
the attention of her manager who later introduced her to Bisa Kdei who
has since been helping her.
“I met Bisa Kdei through my manager and he is a lovely guy.
We are just friends. We are cool and we care for each other. Nothing
really; we are just working together basically. I have nothing amorously
going on with him. We just care for each other; we care as far as
caring could reach. He helps me out musically. He produced my songs and
did the beats,” she said, dispelling rumours that she is dating Kdei.
Currently, Afia has two highlife singles titled Krokro No and Are You Ready, which was released on February 1. She hopes to drop an album sometime soon.
However, she craves for women empowerment in Ghana’s music
industry as she says she is shocked that no Ghanaian female artiste has
ever won artiste of the year award at the annual Vodafone Ghana Music
Awards.
She described it as “unfair” and said it was about time the ladies in the industry came together and worked extra hard.
“Ghana music, the girls’ category is missing a lot (sic).
Even though it is there, it is not there. I think we need to come up and
fight and talk more good stuff in our music. We need to run ourselves
properly; that’s what I can say when it comes to the girls’ category
because the men have overtaken us and it is not fair. We need to come
together, work together and push ourselves up.
“I don’t understand why no female artiste has ever won
artiste of the year. There were years when top notch female musicians
like Akosua Agyapong were getting awards for what they did. I don’t
understand why female artistes these days don’t get it [the artiste of
the year award].
She noted that the music industry could not solely be
faulted for the inability of female artistes to win the artiste of the
year award in recent times, but female artistes themselves, compounded
by the mindset of Ghanaians, were equally responsible for the
unfortunate situation.
“It is always about the men. The people are not focusing on
the women and I blame the ladies…I also blame the industry because they
are not giving the women chances [to] come up,” Afia said.
Listen to her new single produced by Bisa Kdei below..
Source - DailyGuide.Com