...Sounds on da ground and seens on the see-ins I have been wanting to blog about Ghana's World Cup participation ever since October 8, 2005, when Ghana qualified. Now that we've been to the tournament and are still riding strong, the time is right. The Black Stars have shown some gallant displays, especially after a terrible African Nations' Cup campaign. They fought against the Italians and fell short, completely gave the Czechs (and the rest of the world) a reality check and outlasted the USA. Appropriately, Ghana has thrown its weight behind its Black Stars and have been celebrating this piece of history. Ghana hasn't just been celebrating, it has done its part in motivating the 'boys' to be successful. The government has contributed its quota, private industry has sponsored the preparations, the citizenry has offered support and prayers and the musicians have helped us all cheer them on. Just like the good old days when we cheered on our secondary school teams with resounding 'jama', Ghanaians now have songs to sing at the World Cup too. 4x4's 'Jama' is just one of them.

4x4 is made up of Abortion and Captain Planet and were originally part of Buk Bak when the latter group first came out. 'Jama' is a track off their first album, Siklitele which enjoyed massive airplay on the backs of tracks like 'Siklitele', 'Kooko aduro' and 'Rekpete'. 'Jama' (djama) is a generic term for cheer songs mostly used in sports events and there are various songs in the genre in many languages that no particular artiste owns. It is what you will call public music. 4x4's 'Jama' is the first commercial jama song I have heard and it has many verses of popular jama songs in Ghanaian languages. it's over 9 minutes of danceable tunes and nostalgic verses.

Even before the Black Stars set foot in Germany, the nation was given a lot to cheer with. Grace Ashy, a popular gospel musician released her 'Black Stars' song (YE nie) which has received massive airplay. JoyFM, one of Ghana's most popular radio stations organized a 'Black Star cheer song' competition which was highly patronized and won by Accra Hearts of Oak's Chapter O (God bless our homeland Ghana). This is by far to most popular one with the chorus - "God bless our homeland Ghana ei, nkunimdie yE yEn deE a. Osee, osee, Black Stars ei, forward ever!" A group called G-Force has produced a whole album in honour of the Black Stars with the hit track, 'We go go'. Cellular phone service provider, Areeba has released “Put Your Heart in It”, a song that pushes the Stars to be their best. Metro TV owner, Talal Fattal has also released a track for the Stars — “Straight to the Top” — featuring the award-winning singer, Batman and others. The hiplifers have joined the party, with Kwaw Kese (Na ya tal), Trigga Berma (Ma w'ani mmere) and Sidney (Obia nye obia) remixing popular tracks to spur on the football team.

The Black Stars have given us all enough reason to smile and sing along to these songs due to their performance on the field. I never doubted their ability, even in the tough times when they were losing games early this year. When the Black Stars get their kpanlogo dancing football on, they can be unstoppable. It shows, when they play open, aggressive, attacking football, the results prove this winning style. After watching Ghana's games against Turkey, South Korea and Jamaica in the build-up to the mundial, I saw the Black Starlets of 1993 and 1995 and the Black Satellites teams of 1993 and 2001. I was confident of a great showing in the World Cup and even though we had a heart-breaking loss to Italy, I still stayed optimistic. The Black Stars proved us right, surprising the world by dominating the Czech Republic (FIFA 2nd ranked in the world) and outlasting the Americans. At the time of this blog, the 'Brazil of Africa' is yet to play Brazil and true Black Stars supporters know that even though this is herculean task, the 'boys' are capable of delivering.

Ghanaians (and Africans) in general are a musical people. They sing in their stadium seats, play their drums, and blow their whistles. They do with colour, with passion, with interest and with joy. Our musicians know it and they give us lyrics to sing with. In times like this, you don't hear people celebrating victories with 'Otoolege' or 'Ahomka wo mu' (hmm, you could convert these songs into cheer songs though), the sounds blaring through the speakers are mainly gospel. Before the games, people fast and pray for God's grace for the national team and after it, they praise him. Thankfully enough, the Black Stars help themselves as God helps them.

We should not leave our cheers to football tournaments and Olympic games. There are Black Stars in every industry available and they need our encouragement. If we expect our footballers to answer the nation's call and play their hearts out, we must do the same. We should all be 'Black Stars'. Believe it or not, our musicians really need our cheers too. We are too quick to criticize them for their efforts while refusing to acknowledge the resources they are working with. They have given us songs to sing, in the good and bad times and they deserve our encouragement. They deserve to be promoted, wherever we are, whenever we can and however we can do it.

So, in general, the nation is united behind the Black Stars, people are very happy and waving at strangers in the streets. Ghanaians have never been more patriotic, wearing the nation's colours, cheering on and getting together to enjoy each other's company. It's beautiful what football is accomplishing for the nation that our politicians and leaders have failed to do. It's about time we put some of this energy and patriotism into positive action, demand excellence from ourselves like we demand from our national football team and strive for the golden age of business we crave. We must cheer on our 'off-the-field-Black-Stars', encourage them into achieving more and turning around our mediocrity into excellence. Qualification is not enough, academic credentials are not enough, record sales are not enough - we must impact our societies positively, see, live, and experience the POSITIVE CHANGE. Let me join Musical Chapter O in their chant and say, "Osee, osee, Black Stars ei, forward ever!"

Full Jama lyrics by 4x4.

Jama Videos