Long before “Aso” rose to become one of Ghana’s most beloved highlife classics, the song had a far humbler beginning, taking shape inside the tight space of a public commuter bus.
Kwabena Kwabena has revealed that the song’s concept came to him during his student days at Accra Polytechnic, when his routine trips between lectures and home doubled as his personal songwriting sessions. The award-winning musician explained that those daily trotro rides gradually evolved into a mobile studio where much of the Aso album was crafted.
Looking back on that chapter of his life, he said the bus journeys offered him the calm and mental space needed to write. He stressed that the majority of the album’s content was composed while he travelled across Accra.
“Aso was written in a trotro. That album, I would say I wrote about 70 to 80 percent of the songs in a trotro. Around that time, I was at Accra Poly. I would close from school, and I would walk from the school campus to Circle before I got a St John’s bus to go home,” he said.
He further recounted how he intentionally positioned himself at the back of the bus, balancing his file on his lap as he wrote. Those rides, he noted, often became deeply personal and spiritual experiences, moments he believes were guided by divine inspiration that shaped his music.
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Even after two decades, “Aso” continues to stand as one of the singer’s most celebrated works, maintaining its appeal among both older listeners and younger audiences discovering the song for the first time.
Speaking about the future, Kwabena Kwabena indicated that while he does not plan to step away from music entirely, he expects to gradually reduce his workload. He shared his ambition to remain selective with performances, positioning his brand at a premium level as his career progresses.
“Twenty years from now, I wouldn’t say I’d be retired, but I’d be relaxing and doing shows once a year, and I’d charge a million dollars,” he disclosed.
