A Happy Goodbye

“When I was four years [old],” Ghanaian-born singer, songwriter and bandleader Ernest Baidoo, who goes by the professional name Afro Moses, recalls, “my mother used to tell me that I used to speak like [I was] forty years [old] and one day I was standing in my village and I got a vision of me standing in front of thousands of white people singing,” he chuckles at the thought. “And my first crowd at Roskilde Festival [was] about 200,000. So for me, the crowd and cheers is something I think I've done it before.”

Baidoo's mother, Mame Adjoa Biriwah, passed away back in her home village in Ghana last year, and the show he's put together, which will feature his 13-piece band Moses O'Jah, with an all-woman drumming and percussion section and guests Sibo Bangoura, Gervais Koffi, Chris Gudu and more, is something of a tribute to her.

“I come from a spiritual family – I don't even say spiritual because we are all spiritual people when we are born; we lose some of it but still everybody can come home – and my dear mother was very spiritual, and I was in Ghana when she passed away and there was a big show we did. She was a 'queen mother' of my town and I promised I would do a big celebration in Australia. Before she died, I knew that she's not dead – when we die, it's another existence – so I think her spirit will be very happy too.”

Baidoo was recently given an award by the African-Australian community as a Living Legend in a ceremony at Sydney Opera House and he released a 17-track album, I Want 2 B Happy, last year that will get its official launch at the Basement. “Music is another tool that can heal this planet and it can save a lot of things. When I go to the studio, I let the words flow, so when I'm going to sing them afterwards, I have to learn the songs again. It is so easy yet so hard for people to feel good and the best thing every human can do is just to convince your mind that you are feeling good and it will come.”