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‘It’s created with a big red love!’: the ultra-inspirational music of Ghanaian star Black Sherif

The vocalist’s candour, vulnerability and uplifting guidance is helping to turn him into one of the biggest stars in African music. Fresh off stage in Ghana, he explains his pure-hearted approach

Africans, British-Ghanaians and those from the wider diaspora soon joined in and the idea exploded into a spectacular annual ingathering, which necessarily means music, parties and cultural conversations everywhere, all the time, vibe on a rolling boil. In working through his struggles without shame, Blacko – also a University of Ghana psychology student who confesses he doesn’t have “time to go to class” – legitimises the same feelings in listeners who may otherwise be disinclined to turn their gaze inward. On recent single January 9th, released for his 22nd birthday, he sings a lullaby to himself: “Pain in my heart but I’m doing just fine.” Just as Beyoncé’s Break My Soul has her “sleeping real good” as an act of resistance, Blacko celebrates the hard-won ordinariness of being all right – particularly valuable following Black Lives Matter and during a male mental health epidemic.

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