Ace gospel artiste Cindy Thompson has stated that she did not compose her hit song ‘Awurade Kasa’ for the New Patriotic Party’s campaign for the 2000 elections.
The NPP adopted the composition that year for its electoral agenda, which saw it beating the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the polls to win power.
But speaking on Accra100.5FM’s Gospel 360 show on Sunday June 5, 2016, Ms Thompson said Awurade Kasa arose from the circumstances she found herself in at that time.
“…I was in a situation where I felt my family and the world had forsaken me. I had been overwhelmed by my troubles,” she recounted of the song that was voted Gospel Song of the Year at the 2000 Ghana Music Awards, adding that she didn’t sit down to write it, but was an off-the-cuff composition in the studio, a result of her daily supplication to God to change her situation just as God had done for others in the Bible.
Initially hesitant to wade into the subject due to its political nature, Cindy opened up on the matter, saying: “I did not write it for the NPP. The way the song happened…, I did not write it for them. All I did was to tell God that: ‘This is my worry, this is my situation’. So, it was motivated by my experiences. So, it was like all the pains and sorrows in my life, I had summarised into a song and was asking God to take them. ”
She added that she needed a song with a different tempo to the nine others on her Cindy’s Messiah album, and felt Awurade Kasa’s would fill in perfectly.
According to her, she had no idea her song had been used by the NPP to prosecute its campaign until her parents drew her attention to that fact during one of the party’s campaigns in her area in 2000. She admitted that she had feared she would be victimised by opponents of the NPP for the party’s adoption of the song, a situation that kept her out of public view for half-a-year until she later realised people still had no idea of the identity of the composer, adding she only got the attention of the public some three years after the song hit the airwaves.
But she said she felt comforted by the fact that God could use her as a vessel for miracles and for individual triumphs.
Ms Thompson revealed that the NDC, too, had adopted one of her song, Dromo, in that election.
Asked if she would give in to a request to compose a song for any political party, she responded in the negative, stating: “I won’t. It Is God who gives me the song.”
To her, the choice to use her songs for electoral purposes remains with the parties.
Some of her other songs include Awanwa Do, Nyame Aguama, Awurade Bohye, Eyi Ne Odo, and Kwankyerefo Jesus.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com/100.5fm
