Individualist, women’s advocate, artist, and trendsetter Noella Wiyaala is making a name for herself by going her own way; standing at the forefront of a new generation looking to take Ghanaian music onto the international scene.
When we think of artists making it “against the odds,” we rarely think of the “odds” in terms of those faced by Noella Wiyaala. The second of four daughters from the remote town of Funsi in the Upper West Region, her upbringing was typical of that area but decidedly a typical for that of a future performer. Until eight or nine years ago there was no electricity in Funsi, life was remote, and to be born a woman meant a future of early marriage, servitude, and no such thing as a dream to attain. Regardless of all these obstacles, Wiyaala seemed to know from a young age that she was destined for different things, with a telling tale: “When I was about five years old, my mum and dad had a fight and she took me and my sisters to Tamale to spend some time with an auntie.” She says, “We were waiting for her in a local pitou bar and I entertained the patrons with singing and dancing. They enjoyed my performance so much they threw coins for me and I swept them up and gave them to my mother and told her that when I grew up I would get more money for singing and dancing.”
The odds of this were still pretty steep, regardless of the fact that she sang regularly in church. But she was tireless, continuing, “I also used to organize the children in the village to put on shows for the my grandfather who was the village chief. We had a generator in the village and occasionally we would get to watch TV. I saw a video of Madonna in her song “Take A Bow” and that inspired me to dress up and imitate her. I instinctively knew I could do what she was doing.”
Decamping from the small environs of Funsi to the larger town of Wa was where she got her first start, joining the local music scene that centered around Echo Soundz recording studios, hanging around to get studio time and getting her voice heard as a mostly unpaid session singer. From this she managed to record her first record, Tuma (Work), which she sang in Sissala and which gave her some local exposure. The Northern region though, can be quite a remote and isolated place and she knew that she would have to venture south if she wanted to fulfil her dreams of reaching a wider audience, so she made the big decision to head to the capital, Accra, to audition for Ghana’s Stars of the Future. No overnight success story, it took her three attempts before she was able to reach the finals. A brief spell in the group Black ‘n’ Peach paved the way for her to establish herself as a solo artist and sign with Djimba World Records. And she hasn’t looked back since.
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Decamping from the small environs of Funsi to the larger town of Wa was where she got her first start, joining the local music scene that centered around Echo Soundz recording studios, hanging around to get studio time and getting her voice heard as a mostly unpaid session singer. From this she managed to record her first record, Tuma (Work), which she sang in Sissala and which gave her some local exposure. The Northern region though, can be quite a remote and isolated place and she knew that she would have to venture south if she wanted to fulfil her dreams of reaching a wider audience, so she made the big decision to head to the capital, Accra, to audition for Ghana’s Stars of the Future. No overnight success story, it took her three attempts before she was able to reach the finals. A brief spell in the group Black ‘n’ Peach paved the way for her to establish herself as a solo artist and sign with Djimba World Records. And she hasn’t looked back since.
Read full story by clicking here!
