Friday Night Live! Okaidja Afroso

Okaidja Afroso was born into a family of musicians and storytellers in the town of Kokrobite on the west coast of Ghana. He began his career as a dancer with the celebrated Ghana Dance Ensemble. As he toured internationally Afroso expanded his artistic reach, becoming a master multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and arranger.

His genre-defying songs, often performed in his native language, convey a range of experiences—joy, tragedy, and hope—and embrace what he calls “the rich complexity of the integrated world we inhabit.”

Through his distinctive style, which combines percussion instruments, vocals, guitar, and dance, Afroso explores ancestral traditions and creates a new, contemporary African oral tradition. This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective.