The Project

The Sweet Mother Tour (SMT) is a project launched by a group of artists and activists in Boston, MA with roots in Ghana, the US, and the Caribbean. The founders of the SMT recognize that no society can develop without an understanding of its own worth and that cultural empowerment is a crucial ingredient in the successful political and economic development of any society. The SMT uses the tools of popular culture – music, television, print media, and film – to present empowering images of Africa and African people throughout the Diaspora.

To date, the project encompasses the record “Heavy Structured” by Soulfège (a pioneering young pan-African band led by Ghanaian-American artist Derrick N. Ashong), two music videos for remakes of the song “Sweet Mother,” and a documentary exploring the influence of Hip Hop on youth in Ghana. SMT products have been aired in 45+ countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. Major outlets that have aired SMT works include Channel O, Africa’s first continent-wide 24hr music television station and BBC Worldservice Radio, reaching 146 million listeners worldwide.

The Origin

In 1995 I returned to my homeland for the first time in 8 years. I noticed that kids in Ghana danced to pretty much the same music kids in the US danced to – mostly mainstream American Hip Hop. I remember asking some of my friends why they never played Highlife at the clubs, and getting the response that basically “Highlife is old school, Hip Hop is where it’s at.” I did not return home again until January of 2002. Again, I went to the clubs to hang with friends and family and discovered something interesting. I still saw kids bobbing their heads to popular American Hip Hop. But the overwhelming majority of what I heard was in our indigenous languages and had a different groove and feeling to it than anything I had heard before. It was thus that I was introduced to “Hip Life.”

And so I began to question the influence of Hip Hop on my people both at home and in the Diaspora. Since the mid to late nineties I have had the feeling that Hip Hop in many ways no longer represents my thoughts, feelings, hopes and aspirations. Is this because I’m getting old? I don’t think so. Age is neither a requisite for nor a determinant of honor. As a child my parents taught me that African people are beautiful and proud, and that I should respect myself as well as I respect others. Growing up, Hip Hop made me feel proud to be Black. Artists like Public Enemy, KRS-One, Eric B and Rakim, the Native Tongues Posse, NWA, Ice Cube and more made me want to learn to rhyme, to breakdance, to be with “my people” and to fight tooth and nail against anyone who would seek to diminish who we are and what we can accomplish in this world.

By teaching me to be proud of my homeland and heritage my parents laid the seeds of a revolutionary mindset in my heart. But it was Hip Hop that watered and fueled these seeds to grow into a tree that sought knowledge, rejected oppression and dared anybody to test me mentally, physically or spiritually. Hip Hop was my defiance, and it taught me to defy a society that told me Black was bad and someone like me couldn’t be an A-student, or a Harvard grad and definitely couldn’t be those things and still be “cool.”

Today I don’t believe mainstream Hip Hop teaches youth the things it taught me. I think the Hip Hop that most of us are exposed to today teaches materialism, greed, disrespect of women (particularly Black women) and that the only expression of a viable Black manhood is in violence and bravado, typically as directed against poor people of color. The commercialization of Hip Hop has in many ways stolen the soul of the music.

As an artist, as an African, as a man, as a human being I reject the characterization of my people as merely gangstas, thugs, bitches and hoes. Further, as a scholar and an activist I recognize that the impact of music on society extends far beyond “entertainment,” particularly as it has long functioned in African cultures. We don’t just sing our songs, we live them, and they in turn reflect and inform our lives and our values.

So in January of 2002 after discovering that I am allegedly a “nigger” at home as much as I am in the United States, I decided to put my talents and energies towards presenting an alternative image of who we are; one that allowed for art that was fun, funky, sexy, cool and could still make you feel good about who you are, as a man, woman, African, human being etc. I set out to build a musical movement that would bridge the gap between Africans at home and in the Diaspora and empower us to critically question what is happening to us in the world today and to reclaim our pride in ourselves.

And so I present to you the Sweet Mother Tour (SMT).

www.sweetmother.org

e-mail Derrick N. Ashong

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