AccraWeDey, The Homegrown Ghanaian Podcast Celebrating Accra’s People and Stories.Any self

AccraWeDey, The Homegrown Ghanaian Podcast Celebrating Accra’s People and Stories.Any self-respecting traveler knows that when going somewhere for the first time, before embarking on your trip, you’d do yourself plenty favors by reading up on your upcoming destination. Whilst tourist booklets and guides serve their purpose, covering the cheesy basics and popular must-sees, it’s no hidden secret that the folks that really know which greeting to use to whom, and how legit any food spot is, are the people that actually live there. However, most of us don’t have the luck and convenience of knowing someone with insider knowledge, with every new trip we make. Thankfully, if you’re thinking of heading to one of the most-visited cities in West Africa, for one of their many festivals and beautiful beaches, resident Accra experts Accra We Dey are the go-to collective.(image by daffyd.o)Cue Joey Chase, Nii Motey and Pokuaa, three friends that founded Accra We Dey, a platform that serves as an unofficial insider’s guide to Accra. Though ‘Accra We Dey’ may not pop up in the first page of a ‘guide to Accra’ search, I rate they’re probably better than what does show up.What is AccraWeDey all about?AccraWeDey is allabout Accra. We all live in this slightly overcrowded city that has everythingin it, but people just don’t know. We want to create a platform that portraysour home in its truest light, not through the lens of visiting journalists, butthrough that of people who call it home.I first learned of AWD through your podcasts and was highlyentertained by them. You’re now in your second season of broadcasts. Whatprompted the idea of the podcast and how do you go about setting an agenda foreach episode? Yes, the second seasonis already 11 episodes in and no one is more excited than we are. Unofficially,it was a product of drunken conversations with friends. We spent hours talkingabout all kinds of topics. Politics, art, education, religion, nothing was offlimits. We decided to put those conversations out for everyone else to hearand, hopefully, join in. We all listen to one podcast or the other and realizedthat we could be also be part of someone’s daily routine.We base each episodeon our expected guest. How we pick one depends on a lot of things, including:current issues, special upcoming events, interesting projects or initiativesthat catch our eye, who corners us in dark alleyways and demand to come on thepodcast. Then, we do our research on the person, their work, their interestsetc. We try not to lead the conversation too much, because it is important tohave it take the natural twists and turns that it normally would if we werejust meeting for drinks at a bar.What has the response been to your podcasts and AWD as a whole? Overwhelmingly good.We’re clocking 13,000 plays on Sound Cloud alone and it’s a wonderful feeling.People like and share with us their favourite episodes and quote us. Podcastingis very new in Ghana and it feels so good to introduce the general public to anew platform for accessing and sharing information, interests, andconversations, whatever. As much as we enjoy the growing fan base, we’re evenmore hyped by the growing number of podcasts since we started.You often feature key creatives in Accra as guests on yourpodcast, as well as interesting things to do in Accra. Can you share 5 of yourfavorite and recommended places to hang out in Accra, 5 AWD podcast guests weshould get to know, and 5 of your favorite things to do in and around Accra?We want to spotlighteverything about Accra, so if only the creatives are standing out, we have morework to do. We want to introduce the public to individuals contributing to lifein Accra, business owners, philanthropists, journalists, in addition to the creatives.We don’t like to pick out our episodes, because they are all our babies. If wecould offer a mix of our most well-received episodes, they would be those thatfeatured Ofoe Amegavie, Benjie of Purple Wheels, Sadiq Abu of Muse Africa,Poetra Asantewaa and Chrissi of Accra Premium.(We know you saidfive, but we just finished an episode with Nana Akyaa of The Green GhanaianInitiative and Jemila Abdulai of Circumspecte that we think is all kinds offire.)We’re big fans of TeaBaa (for the flavored tea and ‘oware’), Purple Pub (for the yam and chicken),Kona (for the vibe and the palm wine), the Accra Sports Stadium (for the AccraHearts of Oak) and the beaches (Kusum, Sandbox)(Tea Baa via instagram)(Accra Sports Stadium by Joey Chase)The phrase ‘Accra We Dey’ is pidgin for 'We are Accra’, or 'Weare in Accra’ (correct me if I’m wrong, my pidgin is next to terrible). Pidginis also often heard in your podcasts. How important is it for you to make useof this vernacular, or is it something that simply comes naturally? We strive to be asauthentic as possible in everything we do. Many people speak pidgin in theireveryday conversations and the whole vibe of the podcast is to feel like you’rehanging out with friends. We don’t go out of our way to make pidgin thelanguage of the podcast. You will notice that not everyone speaks it, but theconversation continues to flow, regardless. When you think about it, that iswhat Accra is like too. In a day, you will have conversations with people inEnglish, pidgin and a variety of other Ghanaian languages (if you know a fewwords) because it’s very metropolitan like that. The key, for us, is to keepthe conversation going, no matter what.What are some of your favorite Ghanaian slang words andphrases? “You dey explain” is afavourite, born from twitter to poke fun at people who seem to be explainingthemselves too much after an awkward situation.“Some One Two, OneTwo” describes moves (often revenue-generating) that a person is involved in,but would like to keep a secret.“I’m coming” is usedto say that you are actually heading towards the person you’re speaking to,that you will return soon, if you are walking away from them, or that, as aservice provider, you will be with a client in a moment, but, as they can see,you have better things to do.You often use Snapchat as a way of sharing bits of Accrathrough people that live there. What are some of your favorite things aboutlife in Accra or things you wish more people knew about it? There is so much goingon that doesn’t get mainstream coverage. If you let the news tell it, all we dois work, sit in traffic and eat. Snapchat is cool because, sometimes, you cango out and stumble upon bike shows, boxing tournaments, beach concerts, artexhibits, you name it, without planning to. It allows us to share both theevents and our initial reactions to the discovery. It’s more personal that way. One thing that seems to be growing (or, as our parents might say, coming back)is local theatre. Between Ebo Whyte, Roverman productions and acting troupes atthe University of Ghana, Legon, the acting and production talent is growing inthe city. The National theatre is doing well to support, and more people areseeing plays as source of entertainment for their Saturday or Sunday nights.Organisations are also doing their part to introduce different types of eventsto the public. Alliance Francaise puts the Accra art and art performance sceneon the map in a big way. Farmer’s markets, flower shows and dog shows are afrequent weekend fixture on the Efua Sutherland Park, offering wonderfuloptions for families with kids.  (by Xavier Duah)Besides AWD, who else should we be following in Accra onInstagram and/or snapchat? If we give our entirelist, we will be here all night. Our current favourites are:ofoesaysit (amazingshots from photo walks around Accra on both Instagram and snapchat),mamestastes (recipesusing locally available ingredients and food reviews on snapchat and Tumblr)ofoli_kwei (basketballphotography in Accra on Instagram, see below)Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Soundcloud | Mixcloud -- source link
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