Song Competition Launch Event

Just a brief update on the popular culture event we had last week. It was great! Just a reminder, CEGENSA (who I work for) in collaboration with a group called Pathways for Women’s Empowerment held a song competition in April, seeking submissions that change the stereotypical role of women in popular music. The idea was to use the music industry as an outlet for change, trying to represent women as key members of society who hold roles outside the domestic sphere and whereby they are not merely sexual objects dancing in the background of videos. Anyways, the winner of the competition was awarded a music video, which our staff were in, but the previewing we had the Friday before the launch event, I was not seen at all…which believe me, I was relieved. I’m not a spotlight kind of girl, so I was quite satisfied to not be seen. The launch itself was great, and there were performances of poetry, the Ghana Dance Ensemble, speeches from various head figures of CEGENSA, Pathways and the VC of the University of Ghana. The three winning artists then performed their songs, and the first place video was shown. Throughout the entire evening, one of my co-worker sons, who is about 8 years old, was sitting with me and was extremely intrigued by my camera. I showed him how to use it, and mistakenly put the strap around his neck, and that was it. I luckily got it back in one piece, but before I knew it, he was walking all around the room, taking pictures of audience members, shoes, people’s watches and the floor…he was short after all. And then his younger brother came over, who was not as gentle. He was grabbing at it, wanting to be like his brother, but there was no way I was going to hand over my camera to this 4 year old. And then the video was shown. So while juggling with these two boys, and trying to glance up at the screen, I see my bright white face alone singing on the massive screen. I knew they were doing some editing from the day before when I had seen it, but I was not expecting to see myself singing along to ‘As Long as You are a Woman.’ So classic. And then the guy next to me says, ‘Oh that’s you!!’, ‘yes, yes, it sure is." When the event came to a close, I was speaking with Ama, my co-worker who I adore, and the mother of these two boys, she approaches me and said, "Oh, they were worrying you weren’t they??" Saying this as if she had been watching me fumble around awkwardly with them the whole time, and secretly loved it!