From London to Accra: A Creative Writer’s Journey and Tips for GhanaianAuthors | S1 Ep.1

Hello everybody, you're now listening to The

Sound of Accra. This is the show where we

interview colorful creatives and entrepreneurs with

a Ghanaian background or a special interest to the

city, bringing you one step closer to Accra.

Um, before I introduce my guests that I have on today

I'll just tell you a little bit about myself. So I'm an entrepreneur

specializing in digital and technology

with an interest in property investing. I have an annual event

called Diaspora Connect in Accra once a year at the

moment, and I have a travel blog called londontoaccra.com to

help people navigate Accra better. I've been living in Accra

since 2001 and visiting Accra ever since,

since I moved back to London. A relocation may be

on the horizon. Now, um, just to

let you know, you can get the show notes for this podcast by visiting

london, londontoaccra.com/podcast, or

visit the mini site thesoundofaccra.com.

Now, the guest I have on today is an award-winning author and

creative writer I hope I got that right. Yeah,

yeah. Okay, great. And, uh, yeah, he's had his fingerprints in

everything from novels to theater plays. I mean, I don't know what this

guy can't do, but honestly, um, this is one of the guests I've been

really excited about interviewing. Um, he's

accomplished quite a lot. He's been in the game for quite a while now.

Also Ghanaian descent, of course. Um, also

from the UK like me as well, which is great. Um, I'd like

to introduce Anyotey to the show. Welcome, Anyotey. Thank you very

much, Adrian. I'm really glad to be on board and to have

this conversation, to meet you, meet your

listeners, and to talk about writing. I'm always telling people that

I'm obsessed with talking about writing and creativity

in general, so I jump on every opportunity I can, to be honest.

Awesome. Okay, and, uh, I think we actually met at

my Diaspora Connect networking event. Yeah, that's the first one, the first time

we met in person. We'd WhatsApp before then. Oh yeah, I

remember. Yeah, so, um, for those of you that who probably don't know, never

was aware of, um, there was a WhatsApp group created for

the, um, the Year of Return Christmas trip, uh, 2019.

And that group had— has

or had 257 people in it. Can you imagine being in a

WhatsApp group with 257 US, UK

people all going to Ghana or already in Ghana?

Um, it's madness. It's like 300 notifications a day. You can't sleep, you can't

drink, you can't do anything. Could you do anything? No, barely, barely,

barely. Especially because I insisted on reading most of them, if not all. Exactly. Yeah,

but you know, in the conversation, you know, there was a whole bunch of people

in there. There's a lot of noise, but it's always people that stand out in

the crowd, and Aniote was definitely one of those people. Even before I met

him in person, you know, after I've— you know, sorry, even before I met

him in person, even when I met him in person as well, um, you know,

I liked him that little bit more. And already I've got my podcast, which

I'm really excited about. Okay, um, so I mean, I've just told the

listeners, Aniote, a little bit about yourself. Um, would you mind

just opening a bit more about, about what you do

in you know, and your journey from, from the UK to— Of

course, of course, of course. Um, so much, so much. So I'm just gonna talk

and then you shut me down when I'm taking over your whole podcast with

my biography. So, uh, where do I start from? Okay, first

of all, you said, um, you don't know what this brother can't do. I will—

full disclosure now— one thing I— should I say I can't

do, I haven't done up until this point, is poetry. Yeah. Um, so literally every

other kind of writing I've I do screenplays. I've

got 2 novels. The 3rd novel should,

ancestors willing, drop this year, 2020. If not

2020, then surely 2021, at which time there should

also be a historical novel, historical fiction

book also dropping as well. So I've got 2 books in the working right now,

one that's fiction, one that is based on history,

but I fictionalized it for the purposes of storytelling. Um, so

I've been, and I've been writing. I just realized this year will mark the 10th

anniversary of the publication of my first book, which

means I've actually been writing for more than 10 years. Congratulations, man. That's a

big milestone right there. It's not easy, man. Yeah, this stuff ain't easy

at all. I can imagine with writing— I mean, I'll probably just throw this in,

this wasn't really planned, but that's the beauty of doing shows like

this, right? Um, with the, with the rise of the internet, I

mean, there's a whole bunch of content out there

One, I mean, for me, I'm— I love reading. Reading is really

my thing. I'm a content junkie, I'm a news junkie. I don't know if

you've heard of Feedly. It's a news aggregator where you can actually, you

know, basically customize all of the news sources that you get

into one platform so you don't have to keep switching. That reminds me of that,

uh, what would you call that? There's like a programming thing with CSS, some kind

of thing which would let you get news as it was posted that you were

interested in. What's that called? RSS. RSS, exactly. So that's

basically how it works. So we'll take the RSS feeds from different, you know,

websites and kind of put it together. Yeah, I don't know why that stopped, the

RSS, because I feel like everybody liked that system. But I don't know, I guess

there's always something wrong with something, so I guess that's why that they stopped doing

those. Yeah, I mean, RSS feeds, I mean, they are still going there, they do

still exist. Okay. Um, but you know, I think people tend to

be able to pull news sources, you know, from their own

content. People tend— as you get more kind of user-generated content rather than pulling

other people's content. Okay. And that's what I was getting to. I mean, how do

you— I mean, not just making money, but I mean, how do you

deal with, you know, the competition out there with writers?

I mean, there's a lot of— for example, and this is another thing I was

gonna try and get to. So I mean, I've got this, you know, Feedly subscription.

I even, you know, it's even a paid subscription. I haven't renewed mine yet, but

you know, I'm on a free one at the moment, but I want to renew

it soon. Because I'm not really using it for social media at the moment. But

anyway, there's, uh, do you know me? You know Medium? You must have. Yeah, of

course, Medium. I'm aware of it. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, I've got a blog

on there. I've written some stuff in there. I'm not trying to plug myself, but

I know that what I love about Medium, and your take is that

I think for $5 a month you can get access

to anybody who writes content on Medium. And then

those of, those of you who are writing and are subscribed to

their, um, I think their payment reward plan thing, whatever,

you get like a chunk, a share of the profits, you know, in terms of

based on the amount of people that have read your articles. Okay, like that, you

know. And then you got Patreon and things like that. Um, that's— those are things

which I'm really happy about that exist for writers and people like yourselves,

like creatives, because I feel like this was— there's another point I was trying to

get to, that there's so much content out there. I mean, there's so many,

you know, platforms. I know you write novels, right? There's so many platforms out

there where you can actually, you know, um, access free books and

Kindle, Amazon, there's so much out there. Yeah, that's probably another conversation. Yeah.

How do you, how do you deal with all of that? How do you stand

out in the midst of it? Um, how I deal with it is

first of all not looking— I think you used the word competition. Yeah, earlier. And

I definitely don't see other writers as competition at all. Not in a

sexy rapper sort of way that, yeah, I only see myself, you know, that kind

of thing. But it's literally a matter of we gain

more by collaborating more

than seeing other people as competition. Okay. I think one of the problems that

too many African creatives and artists,

um, set for themselves is by seeing other people who are doing— who are—

who are practitioners in whatever they do, acting, music, as

competition, when really there's literally billions of people

on the planet. There are— there's enough audience

for all of us. Um,

to, to partake in whatever it is that we do. So I definitely don't

see other people's competition. I see it as more to gain by

cooperation. So for instance, I run, um,

the Accra Writing Experiment. I returned to Ghana,

uh, ostensibly in 2013, and when I did,

I realized there was no writing groups around. And I used to love being part

of writing groups in the UK. Yeah. Yeah, um, which for any

listeners that are not aware of writing groups is basically what musicians call jamming

sessions. People come together in one space and they would

work with, uh, the same writing prompt, be it

a word, be a sentence, be a number of words, be it sometimes

an image. And then all the writers in the room would write

a— will write a piece. Yeah, based on it.

And that piece can be a blog, it can be a short story, it can

be a poem. I've even been in spaces where people have even written songs.

So I'm a huge fan of those. And one, because it gives me another opportunity

to talk about my right— talk about writing in general, as I said I enjoy

doing. And also because it gives me the chance to

write things that I wouldn't normally write. Whatever you guys in the world

out there do, I'm sure you'd agree that whether you—

whatever kind of work you spend most of your time doing, or your hobbies, you

do that which your, your experience teaches you to

do. You do that which your,

your comfort zone dictates you to do. And even if you jump out of your

comfort zone, you will then do something that you've been

strictly informed to do to leave your comfort zone by whatever self-help book

you are reading or whatever. But with these writing groups, you

end up writing based off of a prompt that might be in that room at

that time, and you— so you end up writing a piece that you wouldn't normally

write. It's you, it's you who you're familiar with,

your set of experiences, but you end up writing from

writing based on an influence that you wouldn't normally be exposed to, or

that you wouldn't be, um,

actually— I won't use the word pressured, but actually, um,

requested, required to write off of that prompt.

So that's the reason why I do that, um, I do that, the writing groups,

and why I brought them here. An opportunity to meet other writers, find out what

people are doing, and whatever it is, whether you find people that are— so, so

with my— apart from my books, with my screenplays

I've met people that are also writing historical screenplays and have the

same kinds of interests as mine. But then you find that there's always something

about them that means that they're not competition. They're writing something of a

particular period, of a particular perspective,

that it means that, okay, you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing.

Let me give you some advice. Let me take your advice on what have been

your experiences. So in a non-corny hippie way, I

honestly believe that

Collaboration is even the next level, but just to even communicate

with fellow writers, fellow creatives, literally only makes you

stronger because you get— imagine the, the, you get

the, the, the totality of their experience and what they have

learned, and then you also get to share your own perspective with them. So

it makes them in their lane stronger, it makes you in your lane

stronger, and then very often what often happens is you'll

meet people along the way who, uh, whether it be actors

looking for roles, whether it be,

um, uh, I should say, uh, sponsors looking for something that they want to work

with that is not of your style, you're able to direct them and say, okay,

you know, I'm either busy or this is not— I'm not— I won't be

in the best position to put this your way, to do this, um, correct piece,

um, for you, because obviously I work freelance as well. Yeah. Um, then you can

direct other people there. So I really believe that

knowing other writers, work with other writers, is a better way to go, as far

as rather than seeing them as competition. Wow, okay. I

mean, that's quite powerful. Yeah, I mean, having all those writers in, in the group,

I mean, iron will only sharpen iron, and I'm sure

there's no limit to what you guys can do. And just bouncing

off each other's ideas and just strengthening, you know, each other's

weaknesses and vice versa. That's, that's pretty

powerful, you know. Um, I like coming across initiatives like this, and I think

we do need a lot more. Um, the writers that you do come across,

you know, the type of content that they write, is it— would you say it's

more kind of novels? Is it fiction, non-fiction? Is it

African? It's a nice mix. It's a really, really nice mix. I've

got writers that consider themselves activists, so

their writing is very African or very Black.

And then you've got those who see

themselves as writers before

being Black or writers before being African.

And so they see their writing as

very universal and not speaking

to any particular cultural

origin. if you like. So I meet a good mix as far as

actual formats. I know a couple of novelists.

Let me shout out. She has such a long name. Let me see if I

can remember of it. Nana Oforiata. Shout out to Nana Oforiata.

That's not a long name. No, no, no. I've missed out a bit. I've missed

out a bit. It's Nana for I Atta something. Okay. It's not

all, but she released a book just in December past,

which I'm struggling to remember the name of, but she runs in

Ghana something called Annual Gallery. Gallery. Yes, actually,

uh, that's where I finally got the opportunity to watch— she did a, a special

screening of Farming. Okay, that film, I don't know if you've heard of that film.

Um, I know most of

you at home right now are thinking, I've never heard of him, but actually, if

you— when you Google the name, you'll recognize his face. He's one of those actors

who you've seen but you didn't maybe know his name.

Um, yeah, um, yeah, so he just made

a film called Farming, which you may have seen the trailer trailer of, or the

poster of. It's basically biographical about his life in, in,

in, um, growing up in, in Britain, of

Nigerian origin. Okay. Adopted by white parents, or yeah, fostered,

adopted. Okay. By, by white parents. And I'd heard of this film, obviously

being based in Ghana, I was thinking, when are we going to get to see

it? Because most of the films that get to get screened in Ghana are

these kind of super Hollywood movies. Um, if

any independent film at all makes it to screens

in, in Accra cinemas, it's going to be,

um, our own made-in-Ghana films, or maybe the occasional Nigerian film as well.

So I was really glad that this opportunity came up to, to watch that screening.

So that happened at her—

at, at, um, at Nana's space. And so I met her. She's, she's come to

a couple of screen, um at Crowd Writing Experiments. We've hosted it at

her venue as well. Amazing. Um, so yes, like I said, it's, um,

nothing but, um, a good thing, the opportunity to collaborate with,

with other, um, other, other writers. That's brilliant. Okay, and

is this, this film, is it Hollywood-based, or is it, um— I'm

not sure where all this funding came from, but it's, um,

it's all made in— it's all set in Britain. Uh, apparently there's

one scene in Nigeria Okay, um, and

there are other scenes set in Nigeria but actually filmed in Britain. Okay,

so yeah, okay, yeah, he's actually— he's Hollywood-based.

You'll see from his IMDb, he was in, uh, I think

he played Crocodile or Alligator. I can't remember what the name of the crocodile character

was in, um, Suicide Squad with Will Smith and all that. Okay, um, and he's

been in Hollywood as far as I know since Oz. He was in Oz, he

was in Lost, all these— he's in Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones, which was

also filmed in Britain. So yeah, he gets around. Board Identity. I'd even—

even I didn't know Game of Thrones was filmed in Britain. Yeah, because it was

filmed in Ireland for the first few seasons, really, and then England for

the second two— the last two, I should say, or something like that. But yeah,

Google it. Um, don't quote me on that. Allegedly. I didn't—

allegedly. So nobody comes to you. I'm not really a Game of Thrones fan,

but okay, um, you know, this— I know there's so many fans out there of

Game of Thrones, so I'm not really talk to you. Yeah, he only had a

cameo, people. So if you're thinking of a character, the guy that had a huge

character, I think he played a slave, slaver,

or something like that. Um, yeah, so yeah, he wasn't— he only had a few—

wasn't in it for a couple of episodes. Okay, great. Okay, um, let's talk

about some of your novels, actually. I mean, I went through some of the work

you've done. It's quite an exhaustive list. I mean, not just novels, I mean,

everything from theater plays to TV series to

films, just everything really.

Um, some of the novels you've written, I mean, I'm not really

familiar, I've not read a lot of African-based

novels, I would say, or novels that have been

written by kind of more independent, I would say, writers.

Um, I think I remember when I was growing up, I'm sure you remember

that book Anansi the Spider. I think everybody knows that. Yeah, we've all read one

version. Yeah. I think that's the only book I remember.

I'm sure it was a very small one that I remember that was

African kind of descent. Talk us

through some of the novels that you've written

that you're quite proud of. Yeah, so

far I've got 2 novels out. The first one was called What

Do You Call It? Okay. The second one

was called Mensa, or is called Mensa, I should say.

Yeah, uh, and then the third one, uh, subject to

publishers and everything else of course, is called, uh, For the

Republic of Hackney. I— that's one that stood out, and

I was waiting for you to mention that one. That's one that stood out. Yeah,

so that's the one I've set— my publishers just sent me the notes back for

that recently, so I'm planning to get back on that next month to actually

start working through, um, edits and, and notes

that I've gotten from my publisher for that. Okay, um, so but for the actual

books that a listener can actually go out and get right now, depending on when

they're listening to this, yeah, um, What Do You Call It is,

uh, my, like I said, my original novel. That's the,

the thing that got it all started. And when I look at my bio, it's

crazy that one book got it started. Um, and when

I started, I didn't know what exactly it was I was writing. I didn't know

if it was going to be a screenplay. I didn't know if it was a

book. I didn't know if I was a writer by then. I just really fell

in love with the idea of becoming a writer. Once I sort of finished university,

I wasn't able to get a job. I was working in a bookshop in London,

an American bookshop. Okay. Borders. Borders. I don't know if you remember those. They were

around for about 3, 4 years in Britain, and then they

sort of closed down. Apparently they're not even really in America anymore. I'm

not sure now. I've got to Google that to confirm. But I mean, for me,

it was my idea of heaven. I've always loved libraries, and then this seemed

to me like a library, 4 floors, but all the books

were new and pretty much new. So that helped me fall

back in love with writing and really learning about how many

other kinds of books there were apart from the books that we were forced to

read basically in school and all the symbolism and all the essays we had

to write, which puts most people off of literature. You know, most of the people

who as adults are put off reading and have to sort of get back into

the habit of reading is because of what they experienced at the hands of

teachers and grades and all this kind of thing. Yeah.

So So What Do You Call It is a

story about a 22-year-old

who is not taking university

very seriously. He is about to, pretty

much about to flunk out, and he gets into an

exchange on the street with

what I call in the book the British National Front. Okay, which is of course

an amalgamation of the National Front and the BNP,

um, both, both of which are now quite quiet. Yeah, uh, politically. But then you've

got, uh, the EDL, it's the English Defence League. Um, I think you

speak to the wrong person. I think EDL, but basically whatever happens in Britain,

there's always going to be a right-wing, oh, we white people have to protect

ourselves with violence sort of organization. You know, they'll use pretty

words sometimes, but that's pretty much what they stand for. And

right now it's EDL, but in the past it was either the National Front

or British National Party. And so he gets into a violent altercation with

these guys in which he's supposed to die.

They tried to kill him, and he not only survives, but actually one of them

in the course of their

violent attack actually ends up dying. So the character has to

return to Ghana to hide out. And that's

what the premise and the story is.

Um, the incident, what leads to the incident, things are happening in the

background, uh, what, uh, happens

while he's in Ghana. And then obviously all as the truth starts to come

out about everything that's gone on, there's a, you know, it all leads

to what I hope is a very interesting ending. So that's what

that, that's what that first book is about. And Looking forward to that. The story,

the title of the story, the title of the book is kind of

speaks to how

varied and wide-ranging the book is. Like, what do you call— people say, what

kind of book is it? What genre is it? And if I'm talking about genre,

I couldn't really tell you what that first book genre is.

Um, hence, you know, What Do You Call It? Yeah. Um, as well as that,

there's also the expression that we Ghanaians use when we're trying to remember a

word, especially those of our parents' generation. Try to remember a word from

their parent language or from their adopted language, and they'll say, oh,

what do you call it, you know, while clicking their fingers. So there's that aspect.

Yeah. And then there's What Do You Call It as well, a little nod

to the Wiley, Wiley grime tune

by the same title, What Do You Call It. It was one of the first

songs that made grime kind of like the national

institution in Britain that it became, and it's now becoming international. On

the backs of the likes of Stormzy and things. So that was kind of like

that relationship between the kind of the urban life that my character was,

was leading. That's interesting. Um, and the part of Britain he was from, of course,

East London being the birthplace of grime and stuff. So there's a couple of

reasons for the title of that. Okay. And that actually followed me

through my styles of writing. I feel like my writing always has like a couple

of layers to it. Okay. Always have a— always has a couple of messages to

it. And yeah, my characters have a way

of addressing

negative scenarios, negative situations that won't be the

way that most characters or most human beings might deal with

the situation. So this is a very serious situation with racist,

violent thugs, but my character

doesn't deal with it with any of the kind of

what am I going to call it, melodrama, or high

sort of tension stuff, that

suspense that it might get dealt with in other creative works.

So it's kind of like that off— I call it a kind of offbeat writing

style. Yeah, no, I think it sounds different. I mean,

it's— there is a place for that type of writing. Shout out to

the grime artists hailing from Ghana, you know, you've got the Lethal Bizzles,

Stormzy's, you know, people like that. Even, uh, was it, uh,

Tinchi Strider? Tinchi Strider. Okay, I don't know where that guy is these days.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, uh, Ghanaian-based grime artists, you know, from

Ghana. I think we've even had a few down recently in Accra

actually investing, which is good. And the UK rap guys as

well. Yeah, big up to them. Uh, J-Hus, um,

Kojo Hustle, all those kind of guys. So many of them. Yeah, I've

even lost count. Yeah, um, but your fans

say— not culture funds, culture funds. Okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, I can't keep up

with all these people, um, not that it's the kind of music I listen to

all the time. Um, but yeah, I mean, would you, would you say some

of these books you've, you know, you're working on or you've written, you know, What

Do They Know? Um, and then the, the one regarding Hackney,

would you say that these have been influences taken from your own life? Of course,

into, into play. Of course, yeah. I mean, most

treatises on writing

argue that all characters

in the people's books are the writer themselves. Yeah. Which

is a scary thing to think about because you're writing about characters, sometimes bad

guys, villains, people who you really don't respect. But of course, it's all stemming from

within your set of experiences and how you perceive

the various antagonists in your life perhaps to be. So

yeah, definitely there's something biographical to everything I've written.

Um, even the Nkrumah biopic I've written recently,

not only is it set in, of course, Nkrumah's era, which

was the sort of 1920s through to the '50s and

Ghana independence. Yeah. But even there, there's a biographical take on it

because he was in London, and much of what I'm—

much of how I'm rendering his experience is,

is, is sort of through my lens of not only how I came to meet

London in the '80s But what I read and

hear about what London was like in the '50s.

So I have Nkrumah's perspective. He—

one of the great things he did, one of the many great things he did

was to leave us a lot of books for us to really be able to

know what his mentality was, what we can learn from him and so on.

And yeah, so I have all of that to know about how he felt about

his time in both America and Britain. But then I've got my own

perspective on London that I, I'm also able to sort of add

what I think are some layers to, to his experiences there

as well. So yeah, definitely there's a biographical aspect to it.

Um, I, I hope as, um, I consider to be a good writer, I'm able

to sort of set a balance that I don't make it all about me, but

I'm definitely not going to try and be disingenuous and say that no, it's all

about the subject matter, it's all about the story.

Definitely um, my politics, my perspectives,

my judgments definitely play big parts

in, in everything I write. Yeah, no, I mean, I

totally understand where you're coming from. Um, it seems like you've, you've

taken influences from so many sources. I mean, your time in

UK, living out in Ghana— I mean, it's been, it's been a number of years

now. Yeah. Okay, yeah, living out in Ghana, uh,

probably reading out in the UK, reading out here. You know,

the writers that you meet, the people that you meet, you know, the things that

you watch. I mean, I guess I'm starting to see the

picture that you're painting in terms of your work, your work of

art. And, you know, it does sound really great. I'm looking forward to getting my

hands on some of your content. Uh, Kwame

Nkrumah, I mean, I mean, he's definitely one of those people up there.

Um, I think on Netflix, I think there was a, uh, there's a TV series

called The Queen. Are you aware of that? Yeah. And I think there's an episode

of Kwame Nkrumah in there, isn't there? Yeah, okay. What's your

take on Kwame Nkrumah? I mean, I think some people call him a villain, some

people call him, you know, a hero. I mean, I mean,

I'm sure you've read some of his biographies. I mean, I've got— there's

actually one that is red. I can't remember what it's called.

I'm still meaning to read it, but I think my father has it in his

study. But yeah, what's your, what's your take on Kwame Nkrumah? Was he,

you know, did he you know, do you think he was a good guy

or do you think he was a villain?

Nkrumah was a visionary

of the type we don't have

anymore on the continent. Yeah, to look up to.

Um, so I've written— I've written— so I've read all

the books he's written except Letter,

uh, Letter to Rhodesia— no, no, the Rhodesia File. That's the name of that book,

the Rhodesia File, where he's specifically speaking about what we today know as Zimbabwe.

Okay. And that's the only book I've only been able to

browse, that at the British Library. I haven't had a chance to sit down and

fully read that. Um, so nobody that

would— not only that, nobody that would read his

books and look at his

list of achievements would call him a villain. What you

get from people who sort of do have an understanding of

what he did, and then what some will

consider some of his extremes,

is that he either let the power get to his

head too much, or he, I

don't know, he lost sense of his sort of balance

that he sort of started out with. Which, yeah, is what

people are able to debate. I mean, I always say now that I, at my

point in, in being an activist and being a Pan-Africanist, yeah, um,

and the amount of— the amount I know specifically about Kwame Nkrumah

and those who are impressed with him, I learn

as much about Nkrumah from books written by his enemies as I do

by people that were his followers. That's because

I'm very interested in what people have to say about

in Nkrumah that is

negative and why it's negative. So

one of the key reasons I see listed

for why Nkrumah isn't

what some would call a great or a hero is that he

was too ahead of his time. He was too ahead

of his time, which is a sound criticism, you could say.

Um, but then at the same time, for the man to know where

things were going, it's

a criticism but at the same time a compliment, you know what I mean? Because,

um, ideally the man would have known,

okay, this is where we're going, but this is maybe how we should balance it

out. Yeah. Um, and this is how

we can make it, how we can get there realistically. As it was,

he— most proponents of him,

of his, including myself, um, had a

sound vision of what Africa had to become, to be able to defend ourselves, own

our own resources, respect ourselves.

He knew what we'd have to do to get all of that done, but he

underestimated the present. He

underestimated those who were fully ever

satisfied with the present or actually wanted to return

to a colonial power structure. Yeah,

he underestimated those mentalities.

Um, and so if you underestimate those, those,

uh, those mentalities, what does that say,

um, about sort of the way you're looking to proceed, you know what I mean?

So with the people that we, we call visionaries now, I find Who do we

call visionaries? Say even like a Steve Jobs. Yeah, Elon Musk.

He— yeah, these guys, these guys are visionaries and they were

able to make it work for the time that they were in. They failed a

couple of times and they made it work. People are buying their products. I'm not,

of course, comparing consumerism of iPhone to Pan-Africanism

or anything, but the sort of the mentality around knowing what

your audience can handle or this other kind of thing.

And then you've got the likes of somebody who wanted to be a visionary, like

the guy who invented that car. The car that they used in Back to the

Future. Oh, okay, the DeLorean. So he can't remember the guy who

invented that. Yeah, I can't remember his name either, but he had— he was kind

of like the Steve Jobs of his day. The actual fictional character that made it?

Yeah, who actually— no, no, the real man actually made it. The man who actually

did that, he wanted that to be like the car of the future, like, you

know, the, the, you know, he wanted it to be on, you know, like a,

a popular car. As it, as it turned out, nobody bought the car.

Um, I— it's just really, really terrible, um, uh, parallels I'm

drawing. But that's, for me, could be the only criticism of

Nkrumah— not, um, understanding the nature of the

threats, um, around him, um, and around

those that wanted Africa to not

achieve the heights that he was trying to take it to. So yeah, I always

have— I'm always having really interesting debates with those that, um, criticize Nkrumah because they

know they see me as an Nkrumah fan, rightly so.

Um, so I'm able to have debates, and because I've read so much on

those who have no time for him, both from economic

perspective, from a political perspective, I'm able to

sort of— I'm able to hold my own in any debate.

Yeah, he's so many. When I was in school in Ghana, um, I learned so

much about what he did for the country, and it's a shame that we don't

have visionaries like that. But yeah, anyway, we're not going to talk too much about

politics. Maybe that'll be for another podcast. We can bring you back in.

But yeah, those of you who are interested in reading some of

Kwame Nkrumah's books, novels, biographies,

etc., I'll have some links in the show notes for you.

Okay, and obviously, I know you've worked

on some theater plays as well. National Theatre,

that's one place I've never actually been. I've always wanted to go. I know they

do comedy, but they also do plays. They do a whole bunch of stuff there.

Have you done— have you been there before, and have— and has any of your

work, um, ended up there? I mean, I know you,

um, what'd you call it, you did some— I know you— there's one thing you

worked on called Did We Get the President? Is that— is that something

that, that's completed? Yeah, that was a,

um, the plays— I've had 5 plays, if I'm

right, um, put on in Accra. Okay. Um, none at the National

Theatre as yet. One was at, um,

University of Lagos at F.W. Sutherland Studio— F.W.

Sutherland Theatre. Okay. At,

at, uh, at, at, uh, University of Ghana. Yeah. Um, that's big. I mean, that's

pretty big. That was cool. That was at the AKÉ. That was like a,

an adaptation of the, the Wole Soyinka, um,

biographical book AKÉ. Okay. And then I've had 4 plays put

on by a company called

Accra Theatre Workshop. Okay. Um, and so those are

the plays I've sort of done. Um,

I've enjoyed myself immensely. Oh, and radio plays as well. I've done a couple of—

um, so we actually recorded a radio play at One Xtra. I saw that actually.

Yeah, I cannot remember the, the, the, the, the, the

run-up to it, but basically it was some sort of initiative that, um, the BBC

was doing as far as Radio 1. You know how Radio 4 does a lot

of radio plays? Yeah, they do. Yeah. Um, I think they wanted— it was going

to be like a quote-unquote urban sort of radio play that

were going to come through One Xtra, you know. Um, I don't think it really

ever took off, but that was the conversation at the time. That was how we

were able to get into the— did they reach out to you? Did they reach

out to you for that? Somebody that was working— somebody that was working at One

Xtra at the time. Um, and so the play was about,

um, the rise of

private prisons in Britain. Private prisons in Britain.

So it's quite a short play. It's focused on

a conversation between a bunch of young Black men

in transit to a prison facility. So, you know, they're in

a prison van. Yeah. And yeah, so

that's, you know, that was what that play was sort of centered around. So I've

done a few plays. Not the National Theatre yet. The National Theatre, I have been

there. Seen a couple of plays. I've attended

concerts there, and I've also attended

Creative Arts Council forums, okay,

that they always host there, usually in this— of the

foyer of the National Theatre.

Yeah, um, it's a really,

really interesting space,

um, you know, Anybody listening to this, if they're not based in Ghana, we're not

familiar with it, they can Google it. Um, really interesting architecture.

I love the architecture. I think it's one of Ghana's national

treasures. Um, National Theatre, I think it's under— I think it's

underrated. I think it is underrated. I think people don't go there and, you know,

enough as they should. I mean, I know— I think it's Ebo White, one of

the comedians. I think he has a lot of stuff going on there. Yeah, you

know, I mean, I think people hear about more of a comedy than than, you

know, other than for other reasons. Yeah, I think he does the

creative arts, a series of plays there, I think every quarter or something.

That's how his business model is set up. Yeah, yeah, Uncle Ebbo

White. Um, but yeah, unfortunately it's underrated, not just because

we underestimate interesting architecture in general. Yeah, but it's also

underrated because unfortunately the

machinery to get plays in there as it stands right now is really

expensive. Yeah, you don't have the sort of setup in that you do

in, in Britain with the National Theatre there, or even these sort of smaller places

like the Young Vic and so on, where there's a kind of funnel system

from grassroots poets, poets or playwrights,

yeah, um, to those kind of theaters. They're always on the lookout. And then if

your play gets picked up, if your content is the right kind of content for

the British audience, of course there's all that kind of gatekeeping that happens, yeah,

but at least eventually people, wherever their

content is, whatever your criticisms of their content might be, yeah,

their work is able to get out there. Yeah, into the play, and

they're, they're, you know, the actual rent,

hiring of the theater, the costs,

um, everything is subsidized by, you know, kind of like Arts Council

and all those kind of things. And we don't have that here. Uh, before you

can knock on the National Theatre's door, you need to have a war

chest of— I'm not going to put the number out there because I don't know,

but it's going to be a lot of money. That of course most

playwrights are not going to have. You're going to pay your own actors,

and you have to have an assured business model to make sure that

you, you will market, um, your tickets

so that all your costs get covered at the theater, and then you

get some sort of money back to pay your actors and all this other kind

of things. So, um, it's harder, it's much harder to

get plays put in a National Theatre, basically. Not to mention them

themselves making some kind of money as well? Oh, well, no, with

the National Fitness, you're paying to hire the place. Yeah. So you pay all the

costs of AC, you're really paying for the staff.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. So as long as you got their

hiring space for them, then that's the— that's the first thing, and then you

can do what you like. Okay. So unfortunately, like most of our public spaces

in Ghana, yeah, it's, uh, the churches The churches

hold a lot of sway in those places. So what you'll see a lot of

the time when you're passing the areas, um, some sort of church program

happening there, which is in some way sad because,

um, many would argue that the church

isn't a theatrical institution, um, so

why is it in a national theater? But it's a conversation for another day. Oh,

cool. Um, that's a conversation for another day, but

Um, it's also something for us to take inspiration from, to say that, listen, if

these guys— what are these guys doing right? How are they able to fill up,

um, these theater spaces that we, the creatives,

are, are worried about filling up? Because if we knew that we could sell 500

tickets at 100 cities each or whatever, we could get those plays put in there,

and then we'd find the money to pay the National Theatre. But unfortunately, we

are rightly so concerned about Whether

we will be, we will be able to find

the audience for our material in order to pay the theater. So it's a

kind of, it's something you can analyze from the front around how do we

get our things funded, or you can represent it from the back, say how come

we don't have the audience that will guarantee

our, our, our, our content will make back its money. So this is a question

that applies to filmmaking as much as theater as much as

TV making. We need— and it's something I'm looking to get into more about—

creating the audience so that getting our content

won't be so much of a struggle. Because once you've got the audience there and

you're able to prove that you've got, um, people with aptitude

and hunger for your content, then there's no excuse

for not being able to, um, get

your film or TV show or play funded. So is that a

tip, um, that you would give

to, you know, those aspiring or existing creative

arts or writers— creative artists or writers, sorry—

is that if they're looking to benefit or live off

or monetize the content that they're creating, that first they need to be able

to attract the audience, or they need to think about the audience

that they want to attract and how they're going to get the audience,

the numbers, as well as just creating the content?

Um, how much harder of a job does it make,

um, being a freelance or a self-employed creative

artist? I mean, how much harder is it of a job? Is it— I mean,

being able to not having to just write your content and just getting paid for

it, but knowing you have to go out and find the audience? Yeah. I mean,

is it a headache and is it tough? And, um, how much

of a job is it? Yeah. Um, that's two questions really.

So The first part of the question, yes, my advice is to,

um, to other creatives to fight, think about our audiences. Um,

it's all fair and good and, and necessary in fact to criticize

the powers that be, whether you're in Britain, um, so I

should say in the West or on the continent, to criticize the powers that be

for, um, whatever prejudices and so on that they

have, um, not giving us the support to get our

stories out into the public realm. That is a necessary conversation

and it will be an ongoing conversation, I'm sure. So we need to have that

conversation. But in addition to that, or, or parallel to

that, we also need to be thinking about, okay, so

those are the facts on the ground. Yeah. In the West, Europeans

are not going to want certain African stories to come out. It's a fact. This

is known. Um, on the continent,

um, there isn't going to— there just isn't that interest in the creative arts

until something's like a guaranteed hit. So those are also facts. Yeah. So what are

we going to do in the meantime? We can, we can complain about and have

those useful conversations, which are very useful, as I would definitely keep saying.

But what are we going to do with the reality being that

we're on our own, essentially? So then we have to think, okay, then what am

I actually going to do to create my audience? Because, um,

in you creating your audience, you get to find that— that's the

ultimate democracy as far as the creative world. You have your audience, you have people

that you know are interested finding your voice. Yeah. Now you can then

set about, um, giving the audience what they want and

leveraging content, um, out of,

um, out of, uh, people that can help you, whether it be, um,

theater owners, whether it be production companies and

so on. And then coming, coming to your second question

about the freelance thing, actually freelance, most people will find, I'm sure, wherever they are

in the world, freelance actually takes away all the pressure. Yeah, because with the

freelance work that you're doing, it's, um, it depends. I

do all kinds of freelance work to help keep my lights on here in Ghana.

So I've done— no light offs here? No, there's light offs. Yes,

even when there's lights off, you still have to pay electricity bills. People will tell

you that. Um, so yeah,

with the freelance work, I've done all kinds. I've done the creative freelance work, so

I'm writing other people's screenplays, other people's,

um, sort of monologues, public speaking things, um,

other people's television ads. I've done all kinds of commercial copy as well.

But other than that, there's sort of the non-fiction, non-creative stuff.

So I've done a lot of website content for people,

um, I've done a lot of sort of articles, promotional articles based

on SEO, which I'm terrible with, but they tell me

the words that the article should contain and I write the article based on what

it should contain. So there's that as well. And with free— with that, you get

your fee upfront or half of it up front depending on the kind of,

um, client you're dealing with. Uh, you write it, maybe a couple of notes

to edit, and then you,

um, you get the, you know, the remainder of your money, or you move on

to the next, the, the next role. So with that, actually, the, the

freelance aspect is, is somewhat easier. But as far as getting those clients,

yes, there is a lot of hustle in doing that.

Um, there will actually be you physically visiting businesses and finding out

if they need, um, if they need,

uh, copy written, um, if they have any sort of promotional plans

or manuals that need writing. So that kind of thing. So there is that aspect.

But, um, the sad thing actually is about sort of the non-creative

commercial copies, that you get paid more per page writing

those than you do writing scripts. Okay. For

things. So where you will speak to somebody who wants you to write a TV

or a movie screenplay for them Yeah, um, you'll

find that the offer price there is going to be

far less than you would get for writing a couple of

pages of commercial copy for a furniture company, for a

coffee company, for a retailer, that's all this kind of thing.

That's— you think that's fair? Um, it probably—

I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know if it's fair. I mean, as a creative, I

would say it's definitely not fair. Yeah, but, um, as a human being and knowing

that there are more people that are going to—

and there are more people in this more measurable— those who are going to buy

furniture today, of course, than those who may watch

a movie when it comes out. You can see how it sets up, how— why

it's set up that way. Yeah. Um, so it's the reality of it. But the,

um, where it balances out is that you enjoy writing the creative stuff more.

So although you get paid less, you enjoy it more, and it's, uh, and it's

a, it's a more fun role. You know, you— on the day, you know, days

of filming, you get to go down to the set, you meet the actors

um, it's just more of that creative experience for the artist. So it is that,

whereas with the freelance

commercial stuff, yeah, there's,

um, the, the payday is higher, but then that's it. Once, once you've submitted it

and they've approved the script, that's it. There's no, there's no sort of,

um, cultural payload where you feel like, yeah, you've contributed to

fun or decent or interesting storytelling in Ghana today.

Okay, wow, okay, well, that was, that was quite a handful there.

So I think that's some good tips from Anyete in terms of

monetizing your content. I'm sure we'll have some links in the show

notes regarding where you can, uh, go on,

go on and get money for free, like for your freelancing.

So I'll have some links in terms of that you can visit in the show

notes. Okay, and, um, I want to kind of segue into some,

some other, your, some of, some of your other work. So what I've seen here

is you've got some interesting developments,

um, Ghana Jollof versus Nigeria Jollof. That, that made me laugh when I saw that.

This is like, has the war not ended yet? No,

I, I don't, I don't think it ever will. Um, the

concept for that, that is literally only a treatment treatment stage.

Okay. Um, it's a movie

actually not set in Ghana, in West Africa at all. Okay. It's

actually set in East Africa. It's actually a business idea for anybody that would want

to pursue that. Um, it's actually set in the east of Africa.

Okay. East of Africa, where jollof isn't the institution that it is in West

Africa. Okay. So, um, two West African

families, one Ghanaian, one Nigerian, find themselves

stranded in, in East— no, no, yeah, stranded basically in East

Africa. And, um, the storyline

then is based on, uh, them setting up businesses,

um, selling jollof rice. That's amazing. And the competition then that then

follows. So, um, it's Food Wars

right there. Yeah, it turns into the kind of like comedy

rivalry. Yeah. Um, that you know,

uh, is, is the, is the making of so many comedy

movies, you know. So that's definitely one I'll go and watch. It reminds me of

one— I don't know if you remember watching My Wife and Kids back in the

UK. Of course, yeah. And, um, there's one episode when Michael Kyle and his family,

I think they try and set up a Chinese restaurant, and then

there, there, there's like a local rivalry with another Chinese restaurant across

the road, and then they just keep cutting the prices down until one of them

goes out of business, and then they all go out of business or something like

that. Um, that's the kind of imagery he's bringing, just thinking about

how this film, you know, may work out. But, um, yeah,

I'm looking forward to some of these developments. I mean, you have a great, you

know, catalog of work in production or

completed, which I'm really excited about, you know, some of which I'm

looking forward to checking out. Um, I know, you know, you've

got a good, good eye and a good ear for some of this content I

mean, you recommended me to go and watch The Gold Coast Lounge the other day.

You know, the first day I met you, you know, you said you're going to

go to this premiere, and I went down and watched it the next day. I

was blown away. I loved it. Um, did you— do you

know any of the actors in the film, or did you—

yeah, um, I'm a, um, I'm acquainted

with Alphonse Menyo. Okay. Um, that's the one who played the

lead. Um, and, uh,

everybody's a fan of Ajite Anang. He's the guy who played the

the patriarch of the family. I think that role is cool. I think he was

in that TV series. Is it Things We Do? Is it that guy, Things We

Do for Love? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Things We Do for Love. He was a pusher.

Yeah, pusher. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. So even at the premiere when

they sort of, you know, went to the front cinema thing as they do at

a premiere, people were shouting, hey, pusher! You know,

so even— it's one of those, uh, for him it's one of those, uh,

what's the word, um, iconic,

his iconic role. So yeah, kind of like, right? Yeah, yeah,

like, uh, David Jason in Britain will always be Del Boy, sort of thing. It's

that kind of thing. However, you know, how many other roles he gets, and

he's a sir now, he'll always be Del Boy. Same with, um, Adjetey

Anang, he'll always be Pusher, um, even though he's— for me, he is the

finest actor in Ghana. Um, yeah, definitely

epic, epic actor. He just really brings

a seriousness to every role that he ever plays. Um,

so I was honored enough to write some of the freelance, um, work

I was describing earlier, um, screenplays for,

um, uh, the second series of a series called Adam's Apples that

he was in. Really? Yeah. So, uh, that's how many episodes did I write of

that? I think about 6 or so episodes. So that was, you know, sort of

me, um, writing for him. And then Pascal Acker I'm a huge, huge fan of

his. I wouldn't say that we're friends, once again an acquaintance, okay? And we've met

at a lot of sort of film screenings. I've been to a couple of events

at his studio space over at,

um, it was at Tessano. Somebody was telling me it's moving, I don't know if

that's correct or not. But this is what the creative scene is

like in Ghana, um, for those listening not based

here. All kinds of events will pop up, sometimes too last minute. Which is a

problem. And then just like lots of round tables where creatives get

around and talk about our creative issues, and it's opportunities

to network and find out people who are looking for projects. So that's what

we're trying to do a lot more of in 2020— link up with other

creatives, get content out there by hook or by crook, find people who

have got cameras and are bored and are not able to, you know, just

let's get out there, let's film something. We've got some scripts, get some actors.

Put some content out there, see what goes viral, but always

try and maintain something like a quality, having integrity. So even if

it's a short film sketch, it has all the sort of

cinematography of a, of a sort of a more serious film, so that

little by little, yeah, we work our way to a point where there's an

ongoing dialogue to say, like, listen, all these shorts, these smaller,

smaller form content, short form content, I think is the official word for those things,

um, how do we make, you know, long-form content?

How do we get this out there? You know, because we're seeing that so many

of the shorts are going viral here and there and being shared around on people's

social media so much. So 2020, look out for that. There's going to be a

lot of, um, things coming out of Ghana. That's, that's

just, uh, just the rumblings I'm hearing and also what I'm going to be a

part of myself. So there is going to be a lot of content coming out,

um, this year in various forms. And this— yeah,

there's no— there won't be any more excuses for us being,

um, very, uh, recognized by

that which would be our audience for the more sustainable,

uh, longer form content. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That was

great. And finally, just before we start to bring this to a close,

um, obviously we talked about you being an award-winning writer, author.

Um, is it Yellow Cafe? Yellow Cafe, is that the one? Yeah, Yellow Cafe. Yeah,

talk, talk us briefly, briefly about that.

Uh, Yellow Cafe was a TV series

that I wrote on. I wrote quite a lot of episodes for that,

uh, about 40 episodes. What channel was that aired? It was

aired on GTV. Really? And

TV3, I believe. Okay, definitely, definitely GTV,

but I understand it was also on TV3. I'm not 100% sure about that,

but yeah, definitely GTV. Um, actually, funny story about that is that

it was mostly, or I'll say 50/50, in Twi,

which is one of Ghana's national languages. Yeah. Um,

are you fluent in Twi? But I'm not actually fluent in Twi. I, I speak—

no. So what would— what was that? I would write it in English and then

the actors would sort of render it into Twi. That's how that works. So that's

why it was sort of 50/50 in Twi. So some of it would be in

English. And then so that one, that taught me a lot, that experience

about writing in a way that

actors can render into another language as they're sort of reading it out,

as they're practicing. That's interesting. Yeah, so that was actually when I— as

a contract I landed when I sort of first arrived. And yes, that was

with Farmhouse. Um, shout out to people at Farmhouse, uh,

Bridget and Ivan Kwajiga. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I have

a question. Is actually the guy who produced, um, Things We Do for Love that

we were talking about earlier. Shout out to him. I remember watching that when I

was growing up here in Ghana. Yeah, I was living here previously. Yeah. So, um,

yeah, so that's— that, that was that. And,

um, yeah, that was a cool experience. I learned a lot about TV making,

filmmaking in Ghana. I was— first time I went to, uh, NAFTI to

see how things, um, operate over there. They took over a studio for

weeks on end and they would just film a lot of episodes all at one

time and stuff like that. So brilliant. Yeah, awesome. Well, that's great, great, great,

great stuff. Well, again, congrats on winning an award for that,

for that production. Um, to have it aired on those TV

channels, I think it's quite a big deal in Ghana here. Um, there's a national

TV channel, so well done, well done. And that was the team. So

that was the— sorry, I've knocked the microphone. Yeah, so that was the, um, that

was the award for TV. I can't remember what that was. It's on

my bio just for my own reference as well as anybody else's. But,

um, award-wise, novels— my Mensa, that's my second novel,

got an award at the, um, Edinburgh International Book Festival. I

saw that. Crime— what's it called? Basically, it's

a crime writing, um, crime writing,

um award that I got from that as well. So that's on the novel side

of things. Great stuff. Okay, would you say moving to Ghana

has kind of made you more accomplished as a writer, as an author, as a

creative? That's a really good question. More than when you were in UK in terms

of— and that in terms of your craft? That's a really good question.

Um, I would say yes, like in terms of the connections you've made, you know.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I would say he's presented— yeah.

Yeah, definitely yes, because anything that adds

layers to yourself makes you a better creative, makes you a better, better

writer and so on. And being in Ghana has definitely done that for me.

It has added an extra layer. So what— whereas I've still

maintained my British connections and people that

I know there, I've then added another layer of all the people I know here,

as well as a different set of experiences, a different set of perspectives on

things. So yeah, it's been fully win-win

and, and gains, um, on, on,

on that front, um, being here in Ghana. So that's definitely an answer,

um, that's definitely the answer to that. Where you're talking about, um, the opportunity to

make things, um, that's also a good question. I think to be able to get

things onto national television, yeah, yes, I would say that because, you know,

I've left creatives behind who haven't had the opportunity

to, to be this. I've written for free

TV vehicles that, you know, people are able to see on national television

here. Yeah. Um, and I've been able to

sort of write to the African experience in a way that if I was writing

to the African experience in the West, I would never be able to get it.

I know one writer that was up until recently writing for EastEnders in

Britain, and of course nothing in what she wrote—

she's of Nigerian heritage Nothing of what she wrote spoke to her

heritage. So although it was a nice experience, and

I'm sure it's quite well compensated working for the BBC and everything else,

it didn't speak to her background. So although we can get into those spaces, it

really doesn't reflect anything of her realities. If EastEnders reflects

anybody's reality, that's something, you know, that's another conversation as well. Yeah, but

yeah, so, um, yeah, definitely

being in Ghana has been a win for me on all fronts. Yes,

definitely, um, as far as, um, as far as being a creative.

Okay, okay, that's great. And yeah, so I mean, thank

you, um, Ayente for coming on the podcast.

Um, just to wrap the podcast up, as I said that before, but I think

we're really now coming to a close. I mean, it's been some really good conversations

here. Um, in terms of obviously

you've had more opportunities, you've accomplished more, you've achieved achieve more being here

than, than the UK. What's

a tip, or what's a tip you'll give to someone who is planning

on relocating from UK, US, or to

Ghana that wants to kind of make it in creative

arts, for example? I mean, I'm sure you've learned some things, but probably

that probably— I think we need another podcast one day. But what's one

tip you would give to someone that, one, that wants to

relocate from wherever in the West to Ghana,

and one tip for the creatives who want to come out

here and make something happen?

Um, to do your homework, definitely. I think this applies to people

who are looking to do creative things or not when they return to Ghana.

Do your homework, because I think the best thing you need to do is to

hit the ground running in Ghana. Um,

absolutely. I meet a lot of people who,

who come to Ghana and they say, okay, I'm going to holiday for the first

2 weeks, 3 weeks. Yeah. And then I'm gonna start trying to work.

Yeah. And that's— I think there's not much advice that I would

say is universal, um, to come into Ghana, but I would definitely say that's the

wrong way to do it. You want to hit the ground running so that you

have a bunch of connections, you have a bunch of events that you already know

that you have to go to, a bunch of forums that you're already connected to.

You are connected to all those, and then you can come to Ghana. And then

if you want, for your first 3 weeks, 4 weeks, don't contact anybody. Just relax,

enjoy yourself, go to your, um, to your Kumasis,

go to the north, yeah, go to Takoradi, whatever you want to do, and then

travel around a little bit and see things. And knowing that when you do

decide to switch on the, the faucet, if you're from,

um, America, or the tap if you're from UK, to then start, okay, all the

people that I've been speaking to before I landed, let me now

engage with them. I know that this event happens every Thursday. I know that

this event happens every third Friday. I know this happens

every other Sunday. I can confirm on social media. And then literally within

a couple of weeks, you are tapped into a lot of things that, that are

sort of happening. But, um, please don't come to Ghana,

Ghana, like, and, and then do nothing for the first few weeks. And then

maybe you're planning to spend 2 months here or something, and think that, okay, my

first month chilling, my second month will be, um, work, because

it will take you a, a month just to now

then start getting connected to things. So at least if you've done the homework

before you land, you can come and then you can do your chilling and then

you can connect with things. So please do your homework, um, have a list,

um, of all your tag words. And we're talking about RSS feeds

earlier. Yeah, have your tag words for what your interests are,

and then do a search on it in your preparation for coming to Ghana.

Do, do it, do a daily, possible weekly at least,

search. And then what you will start to do is you'll start to see

people and places and forums.

And okay, so these guys do this thing where they talk about something that I'm

interested in. Okay, this actor that I'm following went, goes to this thing. And then

little by little you'll get a list of events, a list of locations,

a list of influencers that, yeah, okay, these are the guys I need to link

up with. Yeah, write them emails, DMs if possible.

Yeah. And then say, listen, I'll be in town. Lie about when you're going to

be in town if you need to. I'm going to be in town, I'd love

to link up with you, um, can we do that? And then,

um, that, that's definitely the way forward. That's definitely so— homework advice. That's definitely some

good advice. So essentially homework. Yeah. Um, brilliant. And then

just into— and that will probably go the same for people that want to

excel in the creatives as well? It's the same, same rules apply, right?

Yeah, definitely. Creatives, definitely. I mean, it's the same if you want to come and

do farming here, it's the same thing if you want to come and do creativity.

Maybe with agri— with, with farming, agriculture,

maybe I could argue maybe because they're in the more bricks and

mortar businesses, those guys are a bit more straight-lined. And okay,

you could get contacts with them faster than creatives but that will be

negligible. Like, you literally cannot bank on it. Yeah, same with real

estate, same with, um, even

mining sort of thing, or banking

even. You know, I've spoken and had dealings with, with all kinds

of people who you think, okay, these are in the straight-laced industries, these guys will

be on time to appointments, to meetings, these guys will reply to

emails. It doesn't always go like that. So I would definitely

say to, um, be prepared,

do your homework, connect to people as early as possible,

and yeah, like I said, know which events hold

which event, hold which programs, so that even

when the thing is not happening, you can go and take a visit, take a

look around, especially if that's what suits your diary,

and then maybe pick up schedules and flyers and things that

got left behind from there. You know, it applies to

whatever you're trying to do in Ghana. Please do your homework and, um, come

prepared and, and use, use social media because,

um, all the information you need is going to be on there before you then

graduate to the next level, kind of. Because LinkedIn is social media, but it's not

social media as we know it. So then from there, you can then sort of

start finding individual people's names and social in LinkedIn and find out what they're

doing and private message them and so on. Awesome, awesome.

Awesome. And here, and then, um, what would you say comes to mind

when someone says Accra to you? What would you say

to wrap this up? Future. The future, yeah,

yeah, yeah. Because for me, I'm, I'm

an amateur historian or a professional historian depending on

how you define a historian to be. And so, so much

of how I look at Accra is through the sort of lens of the past

whether I'm looking at Nkrumah's era, whether I'm looking at the 1980s for a spy

thriller thing I wrote recently, if I'm looking at it from the

1800s about my tribe and

the incidents in history that we have dealt with. But all those things

I look at in history just show me that with

all this resilience and with all this sort of stubbornness,

we can— there's so many things we can take into the future. Absolutely. Absolutely. So,

um, that's definitely, um, what I'm always taking— I, I take away.

I know there's a lot of people that say, oh, people, to read history means

you're stuck in the past. But one of my favorite— my favorite adinkra

is the asankofa because of what it represents. It's literally going to the

past to take up what you left to move forward with. So

I'm a huge believer in all studying of the past.

Um, it's literally purpose-built for taking you into the future because you're learning from the

past. You're learning things that you didn't know

about what is internal to you and all this other kind of things,

because you're avoiding the mistakes that people made to help

you prepare for the future. I can't agree with you more. Yeah, okay, so there

you have it. Accra is the future.

Um, thank you for coming on the podcast, Enyete, on such short notice.

Um, how can people get in touch with you? Uh, I'm on

Twitter, of course, Bontri Anyetei, G-B-O-N-T-W-I Anyetei, A-N-Y-E-T-E-I.

And then I'm on Facebook, same name. And

then I am on Instagram

with my company name, Repat_arts.

Repat as in repatriate, so R-E-P-A-T_arts,

A-R-T-S. Instagram. Awesome,

brilliant. And is there anything that you're looking for

at the moment, or is there anything you would like to say before we be

in the— um, for those of you, whoever, um,

wherever you're listening from, um, like I said, we're looking to make a lot of

short-form content, uh, this year. So if you're an actor

and you are looking for really cool short scripts that we can film in a

day, because, uh, we, we, we're not going to be able to be paying, we're

literally just creating a team just to create content. Or if you've got

things that you've written that you'd like to get filmed. Um, just get

in contact. You know, this year we're putting out— we're looking to

film on Tuesday, sort out the sound the next

day, edit on Thursday, and have it posted

on Friday. Whatever, whatever the analytics say is the best day to post,

um, short films or short, short sketches. Literally get it out

there, well branded, well cinematographed. And,

um, go from there. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, um, whether

you're an editor, whether you're an actor, whether you have a bunch of

cameras just rusting away that you are looking to

work with people on, get in touch and let's collaborate and get content out there.

Get, get our stories being told in little passable,

um, digestible— we might use the word— ways, or with the

hopes that in future, um, not even hopes, plans

that in the future we'll be able to get those extended and

get pilots and get whole series and whole feature films made.

Yeah, no, that's a big one. I actually want to plug this in real quick.

So, um, there's someone by

the name of Kirstie. I mean, I think she's an American, but I think she's

currently studying in the UK. She started something very interesting called

the Nana Project. I don't know if you've heard about it. I have heard of

them. Okay, cool. Great. Yeah, and I And that's something again

which kind of ties in with some of the work, body of

works that you're trying to do. I think what she's trying to collect is a

repertoire of stories of people's, you know,

grandmas and grandfathers and, you know, how they lived

their lives in Ghana and what happened and their journeys and experiences.

I think again, that'd be quite interesting to kind of put in some kind of

documentary or play. And that's just a thought I just wanted to put out there.

It's quite interesting. But, um, once again, Anyete, thank you for coming

on the podcast. Oh, you're welcome. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it

too. Um, you know, we have overrun a fair amount, but

it's fine. Um, I will make provision for this because I think there was a

lot to get through. I've got so many more questions and so much more to

talk about. I think it's fair to say in future we'll probably do another one.

Um, again, once again, guys, um, all the show notes will be on the website,

so So you can visit londontoaccra.com/podcast,

or you can visit thesoundofaccra.com,

and all the links and the key points from the podcast will be

there. And yeah, there you have it, guys. Thank you for tuning

in, and see you at the next one. Thank you.