Nii Okai of Mokobe Fame Speaks About Daddy Lumba

It was late December in 2003, when we finally received the inlay cards from Sir Lotsu, a very considerate graphic designer based in Community 2, Tema, and recommended by the Armah Mensahs a few days to our maiden launch that weekend at the St Paul Methodist Cathedral, the church that bears all the records of my young life.

Considerate because the artiste was unknown, the notice was short and the budget was low, but he jumped on the project with simply a portrait I took from the famous Flash Photo in Osu and a big dream to have an Integrity Music standard cassette tape and CD label done. We had just been able to secure some jewel cases and an initial order of about 2000 duplicates from Accra Sounds from the final master that my brother KODA of blessed memory had graciously sent from Takoradi via STC for the upcoming launch.

It is opined in these streets that those with small budgets are often the most difficult clients, and so you can imagine the back and forth, correcting typos and placements etc, oblivious of the real hurdles that lay ahead in preparing for a maiden launch. And yet we finally secured the labels from the famous Accra New Town, the hub of printing at the time. Media Sam, aka Minister Samson Annor, my senior colleague of blessed memory, offered to print my labels pro bono – a seed he offers every new artiste he chanced upon (God bless his kind soul). He wears the best smile when he has to break the news that you’d have to wait another day because the machines need servicing etc. I believe this digital generation have really been spared the beautiful agony of working with printers and tailors in preparation towards events, especially when it’s pro bono, but I digress.

So after we finally secured the labels, we were then reminded that a law had been passed that required all labels to be affixed with a gamugram before they are released. The law wasn’t new to me per se, only that with respect to my prior experience with the release of the Onoa album with P.O.P. Choir, we had the record label do all these koomininis for us, kind courtesy Mr Dennis Anderson and his other partner.

So here we were at the Gamugram office at the then IRS, now GRA in Accra, in a long queue, waiting to move from office to office for our gamugram to be issued. I believe I was there with Samuel Paa Tee Lartey my junior brother and would-be manager, trying to navigate the bureaucracy to finally get inducted into the academy of artistes. For an interesting reason, their offices felt like an after-thought as compared to the main headquarters; no air condition, ground floor facing the opposite direction and visibly frustrated workmen. All we cared about though was the snail-paced queue moving so we could rush back to Tema via public transport or ‘dropping’ to face the other pre-event matters including receiving guests and collaborators for rehearsals, checking on our costumes and following up on special invited guests among others.

After a long wait, we got registered and were issued the banderole to cover our “huge” request for 5000 copies. We stretched our faith to order for 5000, because we believed we would exhaust the 2000 during the launch and would need to quickly meet a rising demand to print more CDs; what else would you expect from a dwin hwe kan graduate? Our joy was however short-lived when we were rather directed to take the banderole to a common room to again await our turn for manual fixing.

The experience was a real eye-opener – scores of clerical staff, who could affix a gamugram at lightning speed, were working on countless labels of several artistes regardless of language and creed. It felt like we were in Bonwire watching the weavers at their loom, and though they were fast and efficient, there were mountains of labels waiting to be sorted out.

I quickly did some mental calculation considering their turnaround time, and I was sure we would be attended to in an hour tops. Then came the mighty announcement…

Supervisor walks in to disrupt the workflow with an announcement that the first consignment of Daddy Lumba’s CD labels were in. It was such a mixed reaction; the service providers were excited and we the clients were unamused. It didn’t take much to figure out what was going on. The workers knew the incentive that accompanied the service they were about to render to DL, and none of us in the queue would be able to match same even if we decided to tip them.

Now permit me to apologize for qualifying my request as huge earlier; this first consignment from DL was for 50,000 plus labels, and they needed it shishiishi because the hit song had been released that very morning. I forgot all about the disruption at once and began to wonder in admiration; so we really do have megastars in Ghana. I’ve read about platinum selling artistes and here I was, witnessing one gafili gadochi. Perhaps because of my mood swing from irritation to admiration, halfway through their exercise, one nice gentleman asked me to bring him my banderole; his words: “yours is just 5000, lemme do it for you so you can go, for you’ve been here awhile”

Abusuafo, he used my order as break time before resuming his work on DL’s. I’m sure DL was taking it easy in Hamburg as we scurried to catch a ‘drop’ to Tema with our first authorised labels in readiness for the launch of Moko Be.

We never met in person, and yet like those gone ahead, he has served his time. May we also serve our generation the best way we can; as for me (and my house), Mesom Jesus!

Written by Nii Okai

Edited & Published by: Clement Afreh CBCInc Hypes @clementafreh