The rising star of Afro-fusion

With her unique voice, Gyakie is rewriting the narrative and making her mark in music

- Busi Lethole

It's a Wednesday morning and I've taken a 45-minute, traffic-filled journey to the SunBet Arena at Time Square Casino in Pretoria. I make my way inside to find a bevy of women dressed to the nines.

There are two West African singers I am particularly excited to see, the first being Nigerian Grammy-award winning artist Tems. Much to my disappointment, she wasn't able to make it the reason wasn't made clear to attendees.

I knew I wasn't alone in this. Earlier on I had overheard two women talking about how they had bought tickets specifically to see the Afrobeats singer.

The second was an Afro-fusion Ghanaian artist by the name of Gyakie. I must admit, I wasn't familiar with who she was until recently. A friend told me, "She's like the Tems of Afrobeats in Ghana."

While I don't particularly like it when women are compared, sometimes it's necessary to get the point across. Gyakie is a rising star on the African continent certainly one to watch and luckily for me, she's in the building.

She was invited to speak on a panel at the summit. A little while after her discussion concluded, I took the escalator upstairs to a quiet room. Shortly afterwards, Gyakie joined me. I told her I had enjoyed her panel discussion.

"I was so nervous," she responded in her soft, calm voice. "I've not spoken on a big panel like that before."

While there's a global trend to box all manner of African musical genres under the Afrobeats umbrella, Gyakie is adamant that she does it all and that her sound is called "Afro-fusion".

"When I started, I didn't have the genre Afro-fusion in mind until I actually got to realise that I'm somebody that is really good in all the fields. Big shout-out to God. So, I'm able to tap into R&B, I'm able to tap into hip-hop, drill, Afrobeats everything, I'm able to tap in.