thursdayborn

11/19/04

I arrive around 6:30pm to meet J-Que and find him in the studio, working with a reggae singer. He says hi quickly and tells me to sit down and wait a few minutes. He works through Pro Tools briskly and takes care of the finishing touches on the track he’s working on.

I am surprised when I meet J-Que because I imagined him to be bigger and maybe more “hip-hop�-looking. I later learned that this expectation is common. J-Que is actually smallish, clean cut, and rather looks like an average dude. You could easily mistake him for someone else on the street. But once he began talking, I could see that he had a kind energy. One that made it easy to listen to him speak.

But the interview didn’t happen right away. J-Que brought me into the studio manager’s office first to meet Mr. Danny Adjei. So, interviewed him first in his modest office before going to sit with J-Que in another tiny room. Mr. Adjei was welcoming and the look on his face made me feel comfortable—that, and the fact that he’s a New York guy. Half-Liberian, half-Ghanaian, Mr. Adjei spent a good part of his life in New York. He is fair-skinned with a bald head and has a distinct smile that comes out a lot. It was a bit of a surprise to have the chance to interview him so suddenly but his personality made it very easy.

Mr. Adjei: Hush Hush is the brain-child of my nephew and three other guys. We actually had a small studio in Brooklyn in a house, in somebody’s apartment. We set up a, how do you call it, sound booth room with a keyboard and a little console and stuff like that. So when my nephew was coming to Ghana, he just suggested, “Why don’t we bring this stuff to Ghana since it wasn’t big and this is a small place, so you can bring little things her and people will accept it. Oh yeah, why not go to Ghana and we found out that we could improve on it. So then each time we went back, we brought more equipment, we brought more stuff, and before you know it, Hush Hush was growing. So we decided to form a—officially we decided to register the company here in Ghana…

You know, hiplife is universal now. I mean, everywhere you go, you go to Paris they have there own version of it. Here in Ghana we call it, oh yeah I thought you were going to say hiphop, we are talking about hiplife. Hiplife is actually from hiphop. So, hiphop is universal, but we call it hiplife. Only because the language is different, that’s why they call it hiplife because they speak the local vernacular. In my own experience I have seen like-- maybe because of the programmers and the people I work with—I have seen like two distinct styles of—I am sure there are more, other people have their own—but the two distinct ones I have seen is one that J-Que does, called jama. And of course, the one that hammer does is more like the hiphop kind of stuff. It’s just put the African words in it, but it’s basically—even does things for people in the States, they comes here and he does beats for them.

But, it’s interesting, that J-Que style, in the beginning, I will tell you all the history, maybe he can tell you better than I can. When he first started doing it—you know people don’t want you to copy what they doing. So the first set of guys that he worked with and the song blew up, it became a hit. And other people came to him and said, “On no I want you to the style that you did for him.� But when he did it, he had a problem with the original guys because they thought he has copying their song directly. So, you know, I called J-Que and I asked him, I said, “J-Que, what is this thing going on about you’re doing two different artistes music and doing it the same way?� He said, “Look, let me tell you something. Jama is jama. It’s like you do reggae. Reggae beat is reggae beat. One thousand people will do reggae and it’s the same beat.�…You see that J-Que’s music, it got basic things to it. Like certain drums, certain whistle, certain style. But that’s what makes the music what it is: Jama. Jama is that kind of style of music. So you would come and you would put your lyrics to it or your own little different style to it. But basically, the rhythm and the style is the same…

…But he wants to promote the Ghana style. Jama is actually Ga music. There’s a tribe in Ghana called the Ga. Their music is called jama. They have different forms of jama. Different parts of the country they play their jama in a different way. But the one J-Que has done is the Ga version of it. So this is what he does and he does it very well. I am sitting here in this office and everybody that comes to this office to do a song or a program they will ask for J-Que by name. When the DJs get ready to play a J-Que song they will play it for two hours, back to back J-Que, different ideas but all of them—because they love the music and the music is nice.

So that’s what I know about the man and his music. And then we’ll talk about Hammer. Hammer too is a different style. Hammer is more the hiphop kind of programmer. He would give you beat that-- if there was no lyrics to it-- you would say that this guy is from the States. Strictly American, you see. And Hammer too, is very good. In fact we just did a movie and he did the score for the movie. Forget about it, I am just in love with it. You see here, the way it works here, or the way I work here, I run the studio. I am like the front office. A lot of people come and they don’t know anything about music, so they come to me first, unless of course they know the guys personally. Sometimes we will explain to them how it’s done, how we work here. Most of them that come, they come because of the programmers. You find my studio basically 24 hours, it’s simply because Hammer and J-Que and maybe another guy who works here who’s called King Cyrus work here…so everybody has different shifts, you understand. But because of these guys, that’s why Hush Hush is really busy. Hush Hush is just a room with a lot of gadgets. But the programmers here, they make Hush Hush what it is. I mean, yes, we give the best things to work with. We are Pro Tools based here. So they have the best to work with, but they themselves have to make it work. It makes my work easy…

How much of your business here is hiplife?

All of my business here is hiplife. We do a little bit of Gospel, we do a little bit of cultural. And, we do a little bit of highlife here too. The engineers here they are versatile. Most of the kids now, that’s what they are into. That’s why most of the business is that. Everybody wants to rap.

What about generational issues?

You know, seriously, music is music. I might not enjoy all of it because of the subject matter, you know what I’m saying. If the music is good, then the music is good. And when it’s good I will enjoy it. I grew up with Diana Ross and Isaac Hayes and those kind of people. In those days—I mean, actually. The rap wasn’t like this. Isaac Hayes rapped but—yeah you know what I am talking about. But nowadays, rap is more aggressive.

But what about the subject matter?

I don’t enjoy violence or that kind of stuff, talking about shooting someone dead and taking somebody’s stuff, you know, shit like that, you know what I’m saying? But when the subject matter is cool, I mean, it’s pleasant then you can relate to it. But also because of the dialect, right, a lot of people don’t even understand what’s going on. But believe me the people who do understand, they really really enjoy it. It’s like that. If you’re saying something that I can understand and I can feel where you’re coming from and where you’re going, yes I will enjoy it better. But we who don’t understand-- because I don’t understand the Twi, but I understand the Ga…The people they will like the music because of maybe how it flows or maybe because of the rhythm. Yeah, you go to a party and maybe you dance to it because you enjoy the music not because really you understand it because if you try to understand before you try to enjoy then you wouldn’t enjoy it, you understand?

How much of an effect does J-Que have with this local rhythm?

Yes, it’s new, the people have accepted it and it’s getting bigger and bigger. Believe me, what I am telling you is the truth. They will play J-Que on the radio for two hours, strictly J-Que, well, 95% J-Que. And if they didn’t like it they wouldn’t play it first of all. And number two, people wouldn’t come and ask for him, they come and ask for him by name. Sometimes he’s sitting right here and they come and ask me, “Where is J-Que?� I tell them, “This is J-Que,� and they don’t even believe me. They think this guy is supposed to be a giant or something…

The future of hiplife?

The future of hiplife is the future of any other kind of music. I think it will be here for a while you know. It is on a parallel level with hiphop. If hiphop should go down, I think hiplife will go down also. Because they getting the inspiration from hiphop.

How much inspiration? How much is imitation?

The only unique thing about it is, like I am saying, is if they are using the African beat. Otherwise, the guys, you should see them, they dress the same way, they walk the same way, on-stage they even act the same way. So yes, I would say most of it is influenced by hiphop, you understand?

So do you think more producers will try to duplicate J-Que’s use of local rhythms?

Possible. Possible, Because even I am thinking about doing something and using the indigenous African instrument in it but stay trying to be close to hiplife or hiphop.

For some reason no one else has done it.