Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley: Simigwa [Mr Bongo, 2018]
In Ronnie Graham's 1988 Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music, this 1973 debut heads a list name-checking several dozen "Various" Ghanaian artists. So having learned that Ambolley had long since emigrated to the States the way Eddie Quansah did to Australia, and having already found his 2019-released 11th Street, Sekonde simply irresistible, I was spurred by Graham's sole annotation, "(A huge hit)," to order it unheard. I have no regrets. Most of this highlife turned Brownian Afrofunk has what I assume are Twi lyrics, but not this Inspirational Patter: "I'm gonna crack you like a peanut, tune you up like the radio, read you like the daily newspaper, until everything becomes about the quogyes of the yebofum." A-