Right-click to DOWNLOAD SWGFRSHERGANG Remix

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you'll be familiar with the sound of azonto, Ghana's most recent musical phenomenon to go global. Still, on hearing Amartey's single SWGFRSHERGANG, our first thought was how come it's taken so long for a decent azonto number to come out of the Netherlands?

The UK is a more logical destination for Ghanaian migrants than the Netherlands (Ghana being a former British colony, so no language problems), but when Ghana's economy was experiencing some major turmoil during the early eighties, the non-English-speaking countries of the Netherlands, Germany and even Italy became reasonably acceptable destinations, and Ghanaians in the Netherlands now number >20,000, more than double the number of Nigerians in the country, which is saying something. Ghana's economy is now the envy of West Africa - it is one of the world's fastest growing - but the Ghanaian population in the Netherlands, though a relatively new group, is pretty well settled, mostly in South-East Amsterdam (>10,000), with the rest in The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht.



Mubarek “Amartey” Radjkoemar's parents were part of that migration wave, settling in Amsterdam where he was born (in 1992) and raised. He says his mum used to play highlife music all the time, so he grew up listening to the likes of Amakye Dedee, Daddy Lumba, Ofori Amponsah and Kojo Antwi, musicians whose melodies he found so catchy he couldn't get enough of them, even if he didn't understand exactly what they were saying.

So he's always had a strong connection to Ghana and his roots, and has visited the country on numerous occasions, thus it was only natural that he'd want to bring this into his music, hence this remix of SWGFRSHERGANG, featuring DC (the original was entirely in Dutch), and he says he's looking forward to hearing his music in Ghana when next he's there.

Look out for Amartey's mixtape, a work-in-progress about which he says "I will surely release some African songs for my African fans worldwide."

In the meantime, DOWNLOAD and enjoy SWGFRSHERGANG the remix.