Ghanaian Highlife musician, Bisa KDei, has pushed back against claims that he sampled the guitar on his 2015 hit song “Brother Brother.”
The claim came from ethnomusicologist Professor John Collins, a scholar of African music and a longtime documenter of Ghana’s Highlife records.
In an interview, Professor Collins suggested that the signature guitar line on “Brother Brother” may have been lifted from an old Highlife record.
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“What Bisa KDei did in Brother Brother was that he picked the typical guitar band [I don’t know] sample. I don’t even know which band he got this thing from but it was very distinctive. He didn’t get a guitarist to play it. He just looped it and used it occasionally,” he claimed.
Bisa KDei responded on his Instagram story, saying he did not sample it and that he played the guitars himself.
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“The fact that I got it so perfectly done doesn’t mean I copied it. I never sample. None of my songs is, because I understand originality very well. I produce and play the guitar too. The guitars in ‘Mansa’ and ‘Brother Brother’ I played it myself. I understand highlife so I play according to the flow. Someone should tell Mr Professor to do a proper research next time. lol,” he wrote.
Prof Collins is widely known for his research on Ghanaian music, his work with Highlife greats such as Ebo Taylor, Koo Nimo and Fela Kuti, and for founding the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation.
@cwstudiosglobal Prof. John Collins take on @Bisa Kdei ‘s hit song Brother Brother on how the guitar rythms were looped instead of having an actual guitarist play it in studio on the Part 2 of Convos with Prof. John Collins. Full episode is on our YouTube Channel( CW Studios Global) as part of The Sound of Gold Documentary series. #fypシ #highlifemusicghana🇬🇭 #ghanatiktok🇬🇭 #GhanaMusic ♬ 1901 – Instrumental – Phoenix
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