Akablay wins guitar award in Benin
He is always fantastic with scripted pieces and coupled with his highly-honed improvisational skills, guitarist, Akablay, stands out as one of the best players on the popular music scene here.
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His prowess got a big international boost last month when he was adjudged the best player at the 2014 Best Instrumentalist of Africa Festival (MIA) in Cotonou, Benin.
The initiative aims at promoting and celebrating African instrumentalists and this year’s event showcased guitarists.
The 15 players came with their own bands from Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Madagascar, Swaziland, Kenya, Morocco and Tanzania.
From September 25 to September 27, they played their own material and a prescribed piece composed by Cameroonian star, Manu Dibango.
“Instrumentalists actively contribute to the success of other artistes and sometimes don’t even get acknowledged, so it was great to have the focus on them at the festival,” Akablay told Showbiz.
According to the guitarist who was in Benin with his Abiza Band, it was his ability to improvise and bring unique interpretation to other people’s songs that impressed the judges at the Benin festival.
“A lot of the other guitarists played the mandatory song just as they heard it. I brought a Yaa Amposah feel coupled with some other Ghanaian rhythms to the song and the technique worked well.”
Akablay has often been commended for the special touch he brings to songs by other composers. He often gets applauded whenever he plays his versions of songs like Michael Jackson’s Human Nature, Bessa Simon’s Sii Nana and King David’s Tsi Obenke Mi.
It has so far been a busy 2014 for the guitar player. Apart from his regular sessions at the +233 Jazz Bar and Grill in Accra from the beginning to the middle this year, he played his annual March 5 concert to mark the nation’s independence anniversary.
His Abiza Band featured in two concerts with British jazz guitarist, Peter White, at the Labadi Beach Hotel in May and he was in Denmark in August and part of September for a series of concerts that included a spot at the Waka Waka Festival in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
A former member of the Western Diamonds band who also studied with Koo Nimo and other great Ghanaian highlife guitarists, Akablay is scheduled to be in Germany for the Kiss Music Festival from November 9.