You would not get it if you had not experienced firsthand or directly felt what these two artists, Ko-Jo Cue and Kweku Smoke speak of in their music. For some, they have only ever experienced one part of the story, not the other, so they may feel somewhat indifferent toward the other.
On one hand, you have Ko-Jo Cue, who has become the millennial’s go-to favourite rapper for how well he captures their realities in his songs. While some only caught on during “For My Brothers,” there are some who have been with him since the days of “The Shining”. At the end of the day, what #FMB did was not just for Ko-Jo’s artistry, but for many young adults, especially young men, who marked a turning point in how albums, especially rap albums, were consumed in Ghana. He set a benchmark that many hope to match one day in curating a conceptual album that blurs the lines between art and reality.
On the other hand, is the new age rap “agyenkwa” Kweku Smoke. Earlier in his career, Kweku’s rap style was braggadocious and swaggering, which, although appreciated and well received, did not give him the solid base and following he has now. After a brief time away from the music scene, his return with a consistent project release, starting with Eye Red, would see Kweku reintroduce himself. This reintroduction will pay off and peak with his project “Playman”. Two years on and three additional projects in, Kweku Smoke is Ghana’s hottest rapper as things stand, whose new style and music reflect the realities many young adults face.
While both artists have had different career paths, there have been times when their music has mirrored each other through themes and context. As such, this article attempts to highlight how both artists, especially in their current albums, mirror the lives of two distinct social groups facing similar battles.
The first thing that stands out about artists is their love for family, especially their mothers. Both Kweku and Ko-Jo share a special bond with their mothers, and they never shy away from showing it. Both of them speak about how much investment their mums have made in their lives so that they can grow up to have better futures. From borrowing and cutting down lifestyle choices to make sure Kweku went through school, to Mama Cue constantly making sure Ko-Jo Cue stayed away from bad company and growing up to become a fine gentleman.
Outside their mothers, they also touch on how instrumental other people in the family were to them, directly and indirectly. While he was tossed around, moving from one family to another, Ko-Jo did pick up lessons from Kweku, who has been vocal about people like his Uncle Abu and how, by releasing early, he realised his family dynamic meant he had to man-up early so he could change the fortunes of the family. Good or bad, family is family, and all the lessons we learn from them culminate in shaping us to want a better lifestyle as we grow, and that is what artists highlight throughout their project.
Ko-Jo Cue provides a step-by-step timeline throughout his life, detailing his growth from childhood to a specific point in time. Kweku Smoke takes a different route, but both meet at another point where they mirror each other on the subject of adulthood. No one stays a child forever, and for some people, man or woman, adulthood comes early for us. It can be when we hit our latter teenage years, when we feel like we have arrived, like Ko-Jo Cue in “Abrantie” or, in other cases, like Kweku in “To Be a Man.”
Once adulthood hits, you see things differently, process things differently, and all those things affect a lot of the things we do. It affects even our friendships, “Squad” Our dreams begin to change, and even our tastes change. You either stay reminiscing about what once was, or you face reality and act on it. For Kweku Smoke, he talks about how he had to leave home and move from hustle to hustle, place to place just to feed home.
Ko-Jo Cue comes to understand how things would have been so different now if some things he and his squad had gone through. But now, as adults, even they as a squad still cannot even do the things they used to do because life is very different now. Both artists also talk about how they also become the ones that need to become the men of the house, not just their own homes, but the home that aided them. They understand that it is not their turn to be the uncles who need to provide for the little ones, as it has also been done to them.
Adulthood comes with mainly two things: chasing our dreams and taking care of our families. Taking care of family can be your immediate family (wife & kids) or extended family (parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunties, etc.). Once again, we find ourselves at another point where both artists are mirroring each other. Both artists allude to that in their intro songs, where Ko-Jo speaks on taking care of his mum and also giving his mum grand kids. Kweku, on the other hand, says that when he eventually makes it, he wants to bless his mom for all the troubles he put her through. Outside of the dream of taking care of family, they both have personal dreams and ambitions to pursue.
Both artists are currently adults who have had their fair share of life experiences that have made them reevaluate a lot of things in their lives. Ko-Jo gives us a breakdown of his dreams in the song Dreams. Like many young adults, our ambitions change with time when the reality of the situation starts hitting us. Kweku, on the other hand, still seems to be a dreamer because while he is living some of his dreams, he still has hopes of better things to come.
In conclusion, while some people feel Kweku Smoke’s stories are repetitive, which I somewhat agree with, I still stand on the notion that you never have enough of something. We never get tired of being told “I love you” by our loved ones, or “Here is more money,” or “Baby, deeper.” The only times we hate hearing a lot of something is when they remind us of our failures, sad times, and pain. But this is you hearing it in song. What about the person who is living in that reality where they always feel like they are a failure and nothing seems to be working? At least they take solace in the fact that they are not the only ones going through it.
Ko-Jo Cue, on the other hand, represents the social class of adults who are also family men, battling family building and the responsibilities of a young adult with many ambitions and many buried emotions and thoughts.
Both artists, despite some contrasts in their stories, still have scenarios that mirror each other, thereby highlighting how two people who may not be in the same social bracket can still face battles that mirror one another.
