Selasee & The Fafa Family joined KGNU’s Indra Raj for a live performance. The group showcased their unique blend of reggae and West African Highlife music, inspired by Selasee’s Ghanaian heritage and personal experiences. They also discussed their upcoming fourth album, Determination, set for release in 2025 (Interview date: 12/9/2024)
Indra Raj: I’m very happy to welcome Selasee & The Fafa Family into the Kabaret studio. Welcome to the show.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Thank you.
Indra Raj: It’s great to have you here. It’s been a while, I think, since you’ve been at KGNU.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: It’s been a while. Yes.
Indra Raj: And you do have a show coming up this Friday at the Caribou Room in Nederland at 8pm. We are presenting the show. Very excited about it. So we’re going to chat about that and a lot more, but maybe let’s hear some music to get things started.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: You guys ready?
Indra Raj: You are listening to Selasee & The Fafa Family live in the KGNU studio today. That was great. Selasee, tell us a little bit about that tune.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: First of all, Thank you for having us in the studio. We appreciate KGNU for supporting this show coming up at the Caribou Room. This song is from our second album, African Gate. The inspiration came from changes that we see. I ‘m originally from Ghana and I migrated to the U.S. and stayed here for several years. When I went back, I saw changes, sad things. Places that you cherished when you were a little kid are all gone with infrastructure and clearing of nature, and capitalism taking over. It’s just sad to see the memories that you hold dearly when you’re growing up gone because of those changes. That’s how this song was inspired.
Indra Raj: Yeah, very relevant for people all over the world. And Selasee, you’re a legend in this area.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Oh, thank you.
Indra Raj: It’s so exciting to have you here. How long have you been performing on the front range?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: This band has been together for almost 18 years, I’d say. It’s unbelievable how time flies. Just saying it caught me off guard. Whoa, it’s been a minute!
Indra Raj: How did you all come together 18 years ago?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: I would say that the music finds the musicians. The sound of music attracts. It’s like honey and bees. The music just attracted the musicians and we all just came together. You know, divine will.
Indra Raj: Absolutely. The music is a mixture. You can hear the reggae elements and West African Highlife is a part of it. You said you’re from Ghana. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about what that is exactly?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Yes, so Highlife music originated from West Africa. A little history about the Highlife genre is that when slavery was abolished and those ancestors came back to Africa, that’s how the guitar was introduced.
But before then, there was an instrument called a seprewa, and it has a specific finger picking style: your pointy finger and your thumb alternating between those two. That has a unique sound. That finger picking style was transferred onto the guitar and that was the beginning of Highlife music. It has evolved over time to the big band kind of Highlife. It started as palm wine music, which is normally just nylon strings, mostly. It’s a chill, very relaxed music that was sung in the palm wine venues back in the day. They’d drink palm wine. A guy with a guitar would play all these original old tunes, most of which are public domain now. I will play one of those Highlife style songs. We have that one on the plate for this afternoon too.
Indra Raj: Oh, great. That’s wonderful. Let’s get into more music, but before we do, I just want to remind anyone who’s just joining us, we’re listening to a live studio session with Selasee & The Fafa Family. They will be performing at the Caribou Room this Friday, December 13th at 8:00pm. It’s a KGNU Presents show. We’re really happy to be a part of it. Let’s hear some more music.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: All right, this one is entitled “Sweet Loving”, and that’s from our first album.
Indra Raj: Selasee & The Fafa Family live in the KGNU studio. My name is Indra Raj. I’m your host. This is the Afternoon Sound Alternative on KGNU. They’re gonna be playing a show at the Caribou Room this Friday, December 13th, up in Nederland. We are presenting the show here at KGNU. And Selasee, this is gonna be with Wiley Jones. Tell me a little bit about the supporting act for the night.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Yeah, Wiley Jones. Wiley Jones is an awesome musician. He plays with us from time to time when we are playing big festivals and stuff like that. He’s an awesome keyboardist and an all around awesome musician. So we’re really excited to play with him again.
Indra Raj: Is he gonna be sitting in with you guys for some of the songs?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: He will be playing quite a bit of the set with us, too.
Indra Raj: Oh, great! Awesome. So another exciting thing coming down the pike is you all have a new album coming out in 2025. So tell us a little bit about that.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Oh yeah, so this fourth album has been in the works for quite a few years. The last album was released in 2015 and so it’s been, let’s see… how many years?
Indra Raj: It’ll be 10 years.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: 10 years.
Indra Raj: Wow. That’s amazing.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: A decade later, another album is dropping. It’s really exciting. The title track is called “Determination”. We will be playing the title track during our concert on Friday. Just come out and grab a drink and listen to some uplifting music.
Indra Raj: When will the album come out? Do you have a release date yet, or is it still being decided?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Still being decided. It should be out by fall at the latest.
Indra Raj: Great. And I’m assuming people can keep up with you on your website and social media to find out more about that.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Absolutely. Yes.
Indra Raj: We have selaseemusic.com. I’m here looking at your upcoming shows and obviously there’s one this Friday. It looks like you collaborated with Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas from the Jazz is Dead series of music in October. So tell me a little bit about how that show was.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: I was really excited. So actually, that show got rescheduled. It hasn’t happened yet. But you’re right. We were initially supposed to play with them in October, but then it got rescheduled. So it’s going to be happening in May.
Indra Raj: Okay, great. More to look forward to then. 2025 is going to be a big year for Selasee & The Fafa Family. Let’s hear one more tune before we go.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Alright, this time we’re going to play one Highlife song from Ghana, West Africa. In this song we’re talking about the history of how after slavery was abolished, the guitar was introduced to West Africa. And Highlife music also was born out of palm wine music, so here you go.
Indra Raj: Selasee & The Fafa Family live in the KGNU studio. They will be performing live at the Caribou Room this Friday up in Nederland, they’ll be with Wiley Jones. And we actually have a pair of tickets to give away to the show. So I’m gonna do that in just a little bit. But first, I want to say thank you so much to Selasee for coming in today.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Oh, thank you so much for having us.
Indra Raj: I wish I’d done this earlier, but it’s never too late. Could you please introduce all of the other people in the room with you?
Selasee & The Fafa Family: So on drums. I have Atta Addo. Atta Addo is also from Ghana. He’s a phenomenal drummer, percussionist, composer, producer, all that. And then we have Zac Flynn on bass. Zac Flynn’s another maestro. He’s also with the Eminence Ensemble. He’s been playing bass with this band for a long time. Then we have Alex Bloomfield on lead guitar. He’s been with the band for a long time too. And finally I have my man on saxophone, Alex Cazet, and he’s also been with the band for a really long time.
Indra Raj: Like I said, you guys are legendary around here. I’m really happy to have you in the studio and looking forward to the show on Friday.
Selasee & The Fafa Family: Thank you so much. Hope to see everybody there.
