A Letter To Parliament

The controversial hiplife artiste who is known to take politicians to the cleaners is at it again. This time he calls his collection A Letter to Parliament and that is album number three for the young man.

A Plus is mainly known for releasing albums after elections but this time he says there is so much rot in the system that he could not wait.

“The album which has 12 tracks on CD and 10 on cassettes carries messages about how past and present governments have failed us,” he told Showbiz with a naughty smile.

A Plus believes that all the money that was used to celebrate Ghana's 50th Independence Anniversary should have been used on the Akosombo Dam.

“I think a day of national mourning should be declared by the government because after 50 years of independence we still import toothpick,” he said.

Interestingly, A Plus, real name Kwame Asare-Obeng, intends to present 230 autographed copies of the album to the Speaker of Parliament to enable each member of parliament to have a personal copy. “This is very significant and will be done after the Easter holidays,” he said.

A promotional CD made available to Showbiz has three songs, A Letter to Parliament, Two Paddies and Mirror Mirror.

In a Letter to Parliament he lashes at parliamentarians who do not live up to promises they make during campaigns and assures them that they will find it tough in 2008.

What really seems to get at A Plus is the 50th anniversary celebration because he believes there is nothing to celebrate in the wake of the multiple problems the country is facing.

“Even the anniversary cloth was imported from China,” he says and goes on to outline series of problems that ought to be resolved before any form of celebration.

The opposition National Democratic Congress also get their fair share of the lashing as A Plus gives it to them for equally spending huge sums of money for Ghana's 40th anniversary celebration, the NAM conference and Panafest among others.

His chorus is for the Parliamentarians to go and fulfil their promises in their various constituencies else they will lose the upcoming elections. He uses Kaakyire Kwame Appiah's tune for 24th for the chorus.

When asked whether he asked for permission he initially said no because he wanted controversy but later said he had asked for permission.

Two Paddies talks about two friends who are after the same girl but none of them succeeds in winning her love inspite of the fact that they go to the extent of fighting over her. The pace here is faster making it danceable.

The promo CD ends with Mirror Mirror which opens with “Mirror, Mirror, Mirror Mirror on the wall. I wanna know who is the nicest, the prettiest of all.”

It is basically a guy singing sweet nothings to his girl Afia Amponsah who is his everything.

Not a bad attempt from A Plus, especially with his A Letter to Parliament, perhaps it will be ideal to listen to the whole album to be able to tell what he really has up his sleeve this time around.

He promises though that there will be another release after the 2008 elections. Wondering what that is going to contain? Make a date.

Story by Jayne Buckman-Owoo