Wycleff, Mario, Eve Storm Ghana

November is set to be an explosive month on Ghana’s entertainment menu, and what initially lingered as ‘usual rumour’ was on Thursday given flesh and name – the coming to town of hit musician, actor and producer, Wyclef Jean. The occasion is the premiering of ZAIN 026 Experience, a collaborative concert between telecoms operator Zain Ghana, and TransAfrica Media Holdings. And Wyclef won’t be rocking Accra alone, for also in the line-up will be Eve (Jihan Jeffers) - rapper, singer, actress, and musician as well as Mario (Dewar Barrett), the American R&B and pop singer. Closer home on the bill is 2Face Idibia from Nigeria, plus local stars Kwaw Kese, Tinny and Obrafuor. At the Banquet Hall of Accra’s newest hospitality facilty, Holiday Inn, organizers TransAfrica Media Holdings and sponsors, ZAIN, announced the coming concert, set for the Ohene Djan Stadium on November 22, will be the ‘biggest concert’ ever to hit Ghana. Lemmy Adebule, TransAfrica Media’s Executive Director, was hopeful the ZAIN 026 Experience will be an industry benchmark, and would be seeking to draw a crowd of 30,000 for the first concert. At the launch were two of the local hitmakers, Kwaw Kesse and Obrafuor, who assured patrons they would ‘represent live.’ And they would be too happy for any ‘collabos’ with the megastars, agreeing somewhat that ‘it all depends’ what the big guys agree to do. On the phone, Wyclef assured visiting Ghana has been a long held desire, and he would not miss the concert for the world. Charles Maye, Zain’s Marketing Director, who was at the launch with Zain Ghana’s Ursula Owusu, Corporate Affairs Director and Tara Squire, Marketing Manager, said the company believed in the celebration of life, and was behind the effort to bring down the big stars especially to ‘Ghana where Africa meets the world’ because there is every cause to celebrate. It is a show of appreciation for the support Zain has enjoyed on the continent where over 33 million people constitute the bulk of an estimated 56 million customers. For Ursula, the ‘give back to the community’ show of appreciation is a core principle of Zain and is supported by a big budget, and on the occasion of the ZAIN 026 Experience outdooring, the essence would also be to ‘help grow local and African artistes’ by putting them on the big stage with the celebrated ones.