Kakraba a.k.a Abebe has a passion for Ewe language songs and he continues to demonstrate that passion since 1979 when he came out with his first album, Mawuena.

This album set the blaze for a sustained campaign which today has resulted in a large song collection from which a further two albums are to be released soon.

Abebe told Graphic Showbiz that he went into this area of music rather early in his career, around the 1970s, because there were no recorded ewe songs and that had created a vacuum for air play of Ewe songs.

“While in the 1960s and 1970s the airwaves were saturated with Akan and Ga songs, no Ewe songs were heard and my inquiry revealed that they were just not available. I felt bad as a young musician from the Volta Region and decided to provide some.

Abebe’s career in music started in his Anfoegah hometown where he joined a local - bobobo group as a vocalist. Soon it was realized that he had the talent to compose songs from folklore and therefore became popular with other members of the group.

In 1960 his father moved from Anfoegah to settle in Vakpo where the major form of music was agbadza. The young man who had then just completed his Middle School education joined the agbadza train of Vakpo and learnt how to play the Kegen, the smallest of the agbadza drums, Gakogwe (cowbell) and the Xatse (maracas).

This local experience came in handy when he landed in Accra and joined the Waves International Band at Asylum Down, led by C K Parku in 1968. This perhaps was the final phase of his apprenticeship in music.

“In 1970, I moved to the Geedes, the resident band of the Silver Cup Night Club. It was here that my potential as a composer of songs began to show. Each time we were on the bandstand, we chipped in one or two of my bobobo compositions and the fans loved it. With time they started requesting for them and it opened a big chance for me.”

In 1978 while performing in Benin, a member of the audience, one Anyas D’Soussa, offered to assist him to record his songs and paid the entire costs for Abebe’s first album Mawuena to be recorded in Cotonou.

Six months later, John Tamson of Johnny Music World also financed and produced three more albums of Abebe’s boboobo songs. The albums had a large market within the Ewe settlements that stretch from the Volta Region to Seme on the Nigeria border.

“In no time, I had recorded over 16 bobobo albums, especially when I formed my own band Abebe and the Bantus but things went haywire when others invaded the bobobo industry. Things became difficult for me and my hand collapsed.”

Kojo Dadson, the proprietor of Black Generation financed his last bobobo album Gbekagbe in 1986 and has since that time become a regular member of the Black Generation Band.

Just after the Gbekagbe album he decided to shift from bobobo to agbadza rhythms because he realized that its profitability has reduced and this called into play his Vakpo agbadza experience.

Today he has nine agbadza albums to his credit and two latest yet to be released.