the artist – sid aakowa
Sid Aakowa was born in Kumasi, Ghana (West Africa). His parents moved him and his older siblings to North America when he was a child, based on a scholarship his father was given by the Ghanaian government to study overseas. However, soon after settling, tough times arrived for the young immigrant family.
There was an uprising in Ghana, and given Aakowa’s father was formerly in the military, the new Ghanaian administration requested for the family to return to the country. Fearing that the family would be in danger upon return, because many of his friends had already gone missing or been killed, Aakowa’s father refused to return. By consequence, the scholarship was revoked.
Aakowa could not help but absorb some of the turmoil, as the family began to struggle with poverty and cultural barriers. In those early years when battling with feelings of loneliness and uncertainty about his surroundings, Aakowa developed a very vivid imagination. In times of hardship, he started writing in private journals, and would often escape into his mind with his own created worlds, with characters and plots that proved more welcoming than his own. Once he was introduced to writers, such as Shakespere, C.S. Lewis, and many others of the past and present, Aakowa absorbed the power of storytelling — he inherited a belief that he could be just as effective with the pen to inspire others. It was then that he began to take his creative gift as a writer seriously.
Music was a source of freedom as well. There were no boundaries for the types of music he’d listen to, relating to the emotional tones of R&B, hip-hop, jazz, classical, among others, where the artists were able to convey their truth through song. When a friend allowed him to explore with some recording equipment, a hidden gift was discovered. Aakowa raised money to purchase his own studio equipment and soon started producing and writing his own works, selling his music door-to-door as a means of income, slowly but surely gaining a fan-base of all ages, cultures, race and gender.
Over the years, Aakowa’s progress has developed to where he now has a purpose set on combining his stories, music and general life insights for the vision to serve the global community.
