Bring Back Old Local Worship Songs ― Evangelist Solomon Yidana

Culture has always remained a vital part of humans' existence and music as an element of culture speaks to the inner-soul of an individual.

Evangelist Solomon Yidana, a preacher of the gospel through his artistic and rhythmic skills is championing the move of making old northern regional songs a well patronised music in Ghana and beyond.

His quest to make this objective a breakthrough is to transcend the old northern songs to the current generation because the lyrics in the songs easily connects an individual to God.

In an interview with Evangelist Solomon Yidana on Tuesday, revealed that the local worship songs simply speaks to a worshipper in his own dialect as compared to the foreign songs where one may even find it difficult to understand the exact lyrics.

Background
Evangelist Solomon Yidana, a Crusader of the word of God in the Northern Region, Tamale was given birth to a formidable Christian home by Mr. David Adjei Yidana and Martha Sulemana both biological parents.

The Nalerigu indigene speaks Mampruli, his mother tongue with other two (Dagomba and Kusasi) northern languages.

He had his primary school education at Naa Bongu Primary in Nalerigu and went Nalerigu L/A Junior High School where he wrote his Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and proceeded to Nalerigu Senior High School.

Born and nurtured into the Assemblies of God Christian doctrines, Evangelist Solomon Yidana is a staunch Christian who fellowships with the Walewale Assemblies of God where he served in various roles.

According to the Evangelist, while growing up, his faith tilted and conformed to the pleasures of the world, but with prayers and counselling from sympathisers, he bounced back to Christianity.

Realising that, things of the world was vanity upon vanity, he clinged unto his Christian faith and availed himself for God’s divine agenda.

“I am back on my feet and have an unquenchable conviction by making my creator use me a vessel to make impacts”, he said.

Evangelism
After completing his evangelism course at Global Theological Seminary which was located at Adenta in 2012, he obtained a Certificate in Evangelism and was ordained as an Evangelist in the same year.

According to Evangelist Yidana, he preached and evangelised the sermon in most Assemblies of God churches.

His evangelism endeavour took him to several places including Sunyani, Techiman, Goaso, Mim among others.

Advocacy for the Local Gospel Music
Evangelist Solomon Yidana’s advocacy for the promoting the northern regional local music is without boundaries and his optimism to gain a very large audience for patronage is unrelenting.

He indicated that when the Assemblies of God Missionaries came to Ghana, they helped in converting the local gospels into hymnals which made it easy for public to understand.

The first black principal of the Assemblies of God Bible School, Rev. P.D Yamusah ensured that these converted hymnals were sung by the training pastors.

“Our local songs carry a strong weight in meaning and one could derive a verse in the bible out of a short song”, the Evangelist said.

Despite the existence of northern gospel music, the Evangelist lamented that, it was important to revisit the lyrics in the music which is discerning to the inner-spirit.

Challenges
Regardless of the herculean challenges in getting the local gospel songs to large audience, Evangelist Yidana has pledged to surmount any hurdle which would cross his path.

He recounted a major challenge that, knowing the actual musician who composed the song and give credit to is a big problem because of copyright issues.

Evangelist Yidana said in desperate attempts to know the composer of any old song he is working on, the answer he receives from people he consulted was that the song existed already before they were even given birth to”.

Another challenge he mentioned was the cost of getting quality studio equipment for making the songs suit the modern trend of worship.

Joy
According to Evangelist Yidana, he is filled with unflinching joy as a promoter of old northern gospel music.

A peculiar joy he shared was the reconnection he has encountered with his family members who rejected him.

He stated that, he was filled with great excitement when he heard his songs transformed a smoker who surrendered to worship God after listening to his song.

Evangelist Yidana said he would be very happy and more fulfilled when his music gets to all radio stations and played on the airwaves.

“I love what I do and I can record at least two songs in a day, which makes me a happy person”, he revealed.

Impact
His songs have repaired marriages which was at the verge of collapsing but when the couple who live in Europe listened to the song, they traced Evangelist Yidana to show appreciation.

“I receive a lot of messages on my facebook like page ‘Yidana Solomon’ to tell me how my songs have been a blessing to them”, he said.

Ambition/Aspirations
He addressed that he is much determined to make his songs reach people in the village through simple software in audio forms, which would make them feel proud when they hear songs in their local language.

A Call on Ghanaians
The Tuo-Zaafi and Bra soup lover called on Ghanaians never to forget their local songs because this is what makes them worship with their entire, mind, body and spirit.

Evangelist Yidana, who loves reading asked all to accept and embrace their culture and local music because it is a food to the soul.