Music — Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy + Kokonelle

The career of the Ghanaian artist Alogte Oho has now taken him all across Europe with key festivals like Roskilde and Le Guess Who falling at the feet of him and his band. However, this has not always been the case. At first, his career moved forward in baby steps and neither his debut cassette from 2007 nor his follow-up album of 2010 brought him the hoped-for success. If things had continued that way, Alogte Oho might have given up. But then his life took a dramatic turn: one day, he was riding his motorbike through Ghana’s capital city of Accra, dreaming about the possibility of a better future, when he was suddenly hit by a car and suffered serious injuries that almost cost him his life. His first clear thought as he came round in a hospital bed found a matching melody and the resulting song became a hit: “Mam Yinne Wa” (God, you love me so) made Alogte Oho a top Frafra gospel artist overnight. At the same time, his music remains wonderfully understated – his singing literally snuggles up against your ear, its rhythm is featherlight and intricate and the wind sections are deeply funky. Coming together, everything transcends into something higher: entirely in the spirit of gospel.

In collaboration with the formerly Munich-based Max Weissenfeldt and his label Philophon Records, Alogte Oho created an internationally acclaimed album whose follow-up will be released later this year. Now Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy are coming to Munich for the first time, and Kokonelle is among the people who are delighted to greet them: the singer, rapper and songwriter with Congolese roots is opening for Alogte Oho with her mélange of hip-hop, Afropop and soul in English, Lingala, French and German. Her wonderful presence will further enrich the evening – and we can hardly wait!



