One of the biggest things to come out of Ghana last year, long before movements like #TimesUp and #MeToo championed female solidarity was the Black Girls Glow collective. The premise behind this was simple, all across Africa, music industries tend to favour male artists. They are more willing to promote them, finance their careers and underwrite their creative mistakes. More is asked of female musicians; in the rare event they get promoted by a label or a patron they are expected to give up creative control of their image, their sound, their very soul. Black Girls Glow sought to reverse this by creating a collective of female musicians, artists and other creatives, a network that allows female artists acknowledge each other’s work and support each other.

The main thrust of Black Girls Glow is collaboration. There is no hierarchy in the collective and its members are encouraged to collaborate with each other in music and production and branding and marketing, all aspects of the business that are usually helmed by men behind the scenes while the moment serve as fronts for their ambitions. By late 2017, Black Girls Glow had either collaborated with or drawn into their fold a definitive list of emerging and established female artists. Spoken word poets Dyzadorm and Poetra Asantewa, singer Cina Soul, Ria Boss, Adomaa and rapper Fu, make the original line up for Black Girls Glow.

After a year of organizing and spreading the word, The collective’s big event last year was the Black Girls Glow concert, which featured the original lineup performing new music and stuff from their individual catalogues. The concert was very interesting because of its all female setlist and the fact that it was the only female only headlining festival in West Africa last year. Huge considering the sheer number of female artists working in 2017 and 2018.

The first videos of the performances just dropped on Youtube and we have to admit, we are more than impressed. We think you will be too.

Here’s Cina Soul performing Julor featuring rapper Fu.

And Dyzadorm’s moving ‘MissUnderstood’

and rounding out with Cina Soul’s Child’s Play

Editor