Jay Ghartey : "Presentin' tommorow's GH music today"

    What do you get when you blend highlife music with American R&B, hip-hop and urban pop?  You get Jay Ghartey! One may then ask “Who is Jay Ghartey”?  

Jay Ghartey is a Ghanaian–American singer/songwriter and producer. He was born in the US but spent his formative years in Ghana.  Jay hails from an artistically and musically gifted family. His paternal grandfather was a playwright and poet, and his grandmother, Sabina Hope was a chorister/actress. The latter was instrumental in Jay’s development as a singer and stirred his passion for music and performing.

In the early 1990’s, Jay and two of his friends, Kwaku T and Abeiku, along with his brothers Tufu and Moses formed the rap group Chief G and the Tribe. This rap act along with KKD’s posse and Reggie Rockstone were the earliest exponents of rap music in Ghana. This early taste of stardom was temporarily curtailed when Jay moved back to US to complete his high school education and  later attend Boston University.

In 2009, Jay made the trip back to Ghana to re-launch his career and the overwhelming success of his debut singles “My Lady” and “Me Do Wo made him an instant recognizable musician. The full length album titled “Shining Gold” has 14 tracks and was released in April 2010. The music is festive, vibrant, original and fresh. Each composition is a celebration of encountering new places and people, experience travels and the daily life of this exceptionally humble individual.

Jay Ghartey's signature sound is a kind of multi-layered sonic collage, assembled from scraps of diverse musical elements. Jay’s music is, in short, made up of a little bit of everything. Thus it's no surprise at all that his musical influences have been wide-ranging. In fact, he counts among his many influences  Bob Marley, Sade and Tupac Shakur just to mention a few.

Whilst he acknowledges the huge strides made in the Ghanaian music in the time he spent away from the industry, Jay bemoans the lack of live band music, which has taken a backseat to artistes rapping over beats.  He pleads with his fellow musicians not to acquiescence their rich musical heritage for a more western one and urges them to stay true their musical traditions.  His views are also shared by the respected Ghanaian musicologist, Professor John Collins who notes that “no one abroad wants to hear the African variety of World Music without African dance rhythms”.

During our interview, Jay disclosed that hiplife artiste Sarkodie had worked with him on a remix of the hit single “My Lady”, which will be released during the Christmas festivities in December this year. Jay Ghartey is currently domiciled in New York City, where he writes, arranges and produces music with his brother and business partner Joe.

The following are key excerpts from a radio interview, conducted with Jay Ghartey on 9/18/2010.

Here's my question for you, what was the pivotal moment when you decided that you were going to sing and not rap?
As you already know, I was always singing. I always just felt liked melody, for some reason, brought out the emotion more. This is how I view it. It is just like when you go to church and the choir sings the same words that the preacher preaches, you understand what I'm saying. Unless the preacher has that raspy voice or a voice that just projects out, where he has to yell it out at you for you to really get it. Whereas the choir could sing it in a soft melody and you'd really start crying because you understand it from that immediate connection. Melody has a certain way that projects back to you. It triggers certain nerves in your body and certain instincts that normally wouldn't be triggered by a normal voice. With me, personally, it always started with the message and it's going to end with the message, so I want to make it feel and project back properly to where you can understand it and it translate well to the audience.

The video for the new single “So Wild” was recently completed and is on rotation on TV stations in Ghana. What has been the reception or feedback to the video thus far?

The reception has been great. It is a high energy video with up-tempo dance beats. The video features some scenes filmed at the Arts Centre with drummers and traditional dances. I like to juxtapose the traditional with the more contemporary aspects of our culture. I have had feedback from a lot of folks who have commended me for showcasing the rich elements of Ghanaian culture in this video and sharing it with the rest of world. The video is also currently on rotation on MTV Base and Channel O!

You have described your style of music as “urban pop life”, which is urban music mixed with R&B and a sprinkling of African percussions and highlife guitar. Do you mind expounding on that and what is so different about your music?

The reason why I call it “urban pop life” is because it’s urban music in a sense of the beats, the hip-hop and R&B. I mean in the whole world hip-hop and R&B is big right now, and I’m also part of that. At same time I like highlife and reggae music. I grew up to it when I was in Ghana, so I stress very strong melody; and have a lot of guitars and african percussion in the music.

And so, what is different about my music is that I am bringing out African music in a pop sense but keeping it broad, so a lot of people will want to hear the melody and style. It took a really long time be able to do that because when you try to make a mix of styles, you have to be careful what you lose when you change it too much. People really find my music universal, and so mixing the African percussion, bringing the African guitar and bass lines in makes it unique, but at the same time it has a mass appeal. 

Jay, I learned from reliable sources while preparing for this interview that you and your brother Joe, were involved in some charity work.  Could you tell us the name of the Foundation and what you plan on accomplishing”?

The name of the foundation is GH Brothers Youth Foundation (My brother Joe Ghartey & I). We’ve always wanted to do something like this, and we did not want wait until years have gone by. The album is coming out now, we wanted to give something back while we are still working. So we decided to do it. The first center we have will be in Nima, in the heart of Accra as you know. We went to see the chief of Nima who gave his blessings for the Foundation. A site has been found and we’re renovating it as we speak, so hopefully by the end of the year it will be running. We have a full-time teacher who will be teaching at-risk kids and a music program. It is going to be a very challenging foundation because we will want to get the dropouts back into the education system. We are going to get a lot of people involved with it, whether in Ghana or in the US, so you’re going to hear a lot about (edited).

          Jay’s music has the universality and appeal that transcends his own personality. Just as the Black Stars put Ghana on the soccer map, so will Jay Ghartey through his music. Jay Ghartey is certainly taking music from his native Ghana to the next level!  Many thanks go to Joe Ghartey for making this interview possible. Stay tuned!

Here is a link to the full radio interview.

The Afrikan Child © Copyright 2010. All Rights reserved. No part of these pages, either text or image may be duplicated without the author's permission. Also, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise is strictly prohibited without prior written permission. General inquiries should be directed to our Web feedback box, accessible from this link or from the footer at the bottom of most pages on our site.