I WANT TO COUNT YOUR WAIST BEADS!

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you long and wish for the love you once had from someone but this person is just not available anymore?
Have you wronged your loved one and later realized how bad you treated the partner, except that at the time of your regret, your partner had taken the lead and walked on?


In the Akan language, “adiepena” literally translates as something you really want, yet you cannot have it. It may sometimes refer to something within your reach but you just cannot have it. On his most recent album, which is quite old on the market, there is a track, “Adiepena” in which Kojo Antwi cries his heart out for the love he has just lost. It is not clear what he did for the lady to decide to move on but from all indications, Kojo has regretted and now misses his love so much.
Whatever he did must have been pretty awful because the warnings left by the lady are quite deep: he is to stop calling her, he is not to dream about her again, to walk past her, should they meet, not to even greet her shadow, to just walk away if he sees someone trying to murder her, more to say all memories of her should be erased from his mind. But lover boy Kojo Antwi has tried but he just cannot face this reality. He misses her, he cries out to her, he calls her phone only to hear a voice say it is switched off, he just wants to smell her perfume from close range, gosh he just wants to hear her voice! Kojo on some deep loving and regrets here. Trust the Musicman for that.

All his initial statements and sentiments establish his regrets and need to see the lady again. They all seem to be light considering particular lines of lyrics in the later part of the song. He goes on to show how close and attached he was to the lady. So intimate were they that he wanted to show her off to his pastor while holding hands. He most probably misses the times and moments they shared, the times he woke up on the lady’s chest. This is where he states that he wants to count the lines of beads on her waist. This very line shows how intimate they were and how close they had grown. But alas, Kojo can cry all he wants. The lady has decided to walk and from all indications, she is not coming back. Listening to this track over and over, I concluded that it is a clear case of not knowing the value of what you have until you loose it.

The genre for this track is lovers’ rock, which is a romantic form of reggae music. The beat, together with the content of the various lines of lyrics makes this record very interesting to listen.