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| Profile: Rex Omar |
10/28/2005 |
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Profile: Rex Omar
Rex Omar has a unique style of picking his tunes from the roots of African rhythms with the predominance of guitar sounds and lots of percussions in the background.
He sings love, gospel and ventures into commentaries on social and political issues. The songster does the old school highlife that is basically aimed at entertaining and other enjoyment purposes creditably.
These qualities came up in Ajala and Dada Dida both love songs.He employs the extensive use of percussions and guitar even though in both cases he uses wind instruments such as trumpets at the introductory or opening stages.
In both tracks which are on his CD titled Ajala he employs banters “sugar titi, shorge, sawa, haba, mitoke abele” to ensure that he lightens the delivery of his lyrics.
Jekajo and Plays I also on the Ajala CD are quick tempo and therefore very danceable tracks but that is not what is interesting about the two.
Jekajo opens with juju music and maintains its Nigerian character with an old Nigerian banter‘intoniawa’ and ‘Asante kwadaa onim adwuma papa’in a typical Nigerian accent.
Plays I is a highlife interpretation of Cuban and Latin American music and occasionally the track sound like that of Osibisa.
Another strong side of the songster is his mastery of different languages Kele Ngele and Bengue Ma done in Jula and Wollof,languages widely spoken along the western coast, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Mali in his music.
In Kele Ngele the songster sings about the strength in unity and this comes up when he breaks that language and introduces English.
Rex Omar has yet another strong side.In an era when many Ghanaian artistes are resorting to computer rhythms to back their music he stands determined to live accoustic and percussions to preserve the orignality of the African rhythms.
In the Palmwine CD Omar introduces a gospel track.He tells his audience about God’s preparedness to continue to provide but he calls on them to try again on their own and again till they succeed.
Other songs are Psalm 27 and Alfa and Omega. The best of Rex Omar comes up when he walks the terrain where he seems to be very conversant that is social and political commentary.
Rex Omar,according to his manager Mr Ebow Hawkson, is the Board President of Do It Yourself—Africa,an NGO that believes that Africans have the capacity to achieve development entirely on their own resources and efforts.
On all of Omars three CDs that I listened to he featured songs of African unity and the potential of Africa that could be harnessed to achieve the developmental goals of the continent.
He also sings to encourage African people to take their destiny into their own hands as he calls in I am glad I am me and says that civilisation of today is the brain child of a selfless man.
This is obviously a purpose or a goal that the songster has set for himself.It may be difficult but if you listen to the series some of which are Am African,Who am I? (incidentally the track that Rex give a Dzembe solo rendition which is very delightful)Are We?and Agyinisam are attainable.
Rex Omar aka Rex Owusu Marfo is not the chairman of “Do It Yourself—Africa” for nothing,he is living their aims and is very likely to carry that very far because of the way he has integrated it into his music.
His manager tells me that Rex Omar believes that if the many talented artist craftsmen, authors,writers,actors can be mobilised and assisted through special projects to channel their energies towards becoming more productive ventures in their fields of endeavours many problems of African countries will be solved one after the other.
Source: Graphic
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