Ghanaian Band, FRA! thrills audience at Sauti Za Busara, Zanzibar – SEE PHOTOS

Sauti Za Busara is an East African music festival which takes place in Stone Town, Zanzibar in February each year. The festival is one of the largest on the continent and the most prestigious in the world, showcasing contemporary African bands. FRA! was one of the musical acts which earned a highly coveted spot on the festival’s main stage this representing Ghanaian music in the lineup of artistes.

The festival has featured mostly music from East African countries but the reaches of bands from other countries has seeped its way into the headlines of the festival over the years and FRA! has been no exception to this. They put up a show which could be only be matched in energy by a tropical rainstorm and were eagerly accepted by the expectant crowd. The atmosphere during FRA!’s performance was undoubtedly organic with the audience chanting to the anthemic choruses in most of the songs as well as gyrating to the groove from the band. Indeed FRA! displayed what could only explain why festival director Yusuf Mahmoud and his team selected them as a top pick to perform at the 2020 edition of Sauti Za Busara. The band says their slogan “FRA! to the world” keeps them hungry to go bigger and showcase themselves to a truly global status.

The band started in 2015 by young lads who initially wanted to cover songs for other artistes but eventually decided to trod a different path and write their own music in the vein of many influential bands before them like Osibisa and Ebo Taylor. They chose a name in Akan which means “mix”. Listening to their music lends one a sense of understanding as to why this is so.

The fusion of different musical styles is very prominent in the art style that FRA! writes their songs. This is putting them on course to be a top musical act to look out for as they have already had the chance to grace the stages of several music festivals like Stanbic Jazz Festival, Visa for Music in Morocco and a summer tour of Spain at a circuit of festivals in 2019. They have released two album projects which are FRA!ternity and Journey and have other things in development as well. The current lineup is made of George Gogoe on bass, Joshua ‘Virgen’ Boateng on drums, Selorm Dornyoh on guitar, Martin Adjartey on keyboard, Ishmael ‘Ayala’ Kugblenu on percussions and Benjamin ‘Nii TT’ Ashong on lead vocals.