The father of Afrobeat Fela Kuti has a song where he spoke the Ghanaian language Twi.

This wasn’t like how Kizz Daniel took a phrase from Twi and made a hit song out of it. On Fela Kuti’s 1973 album, Gentleman, the Afrobeat legend has a song titled “Fefe Naa Efe” where he sang predominantly in Twi with a bit of pidgin and Yoruba. He made reference to a popular Ashanti proverb: “Fɛfɛ na ɛfɛ nti na ɔbaa tu mirika ɔsɔ ne nufu mu, Nyɛ sɛ ɛbɛ ti atɔ nti”.

In the early 2000s, iconic Ghanaian hiplife artiste Tic Tac, now known as TiC, used this same reference on his hit song ‘Fefe Ne Fe’ which features Nigeria’s Tony Tetuila. In 2021, M.anifest also referenced this proverb on ‘La Vida’, a song off his Madina to the Universe album.