Is What You Make It

Originally released in 2016, Is What You Make It is now being reissued. The project has a delightful origin story. In 2008 Jim Wilson, a musician from Athens, Georgia, travelled to Accra in Ghana where he became fascinated by West African music and intrigued by the odd, sometimes comical phrases on stickers adorning Accra’s taxicabs. Wilson noted down the phrases, and immersed himself in the music, eventually meeting atentenben (bamboo flute) player Kofi Atentenben and his band the Warriors.

Taking lyrical inspiration from the ‘taxicab verses’, Wilson recorded ten tracks with Kofi & the Warriors before returning to Georgia. Further recordings were made at the Flicker Theatre in downtown Athens, adding electric guitar, bass, cello, drums, violin, saxophone and soulful backing vocals to the djembé, congas, xylophone and atentenben.

Is What You Make It is a unique Ghanian-American collaboration – the atentenben duels with the saxophone, the djembés provide a solid bedrock for the gritty guitars. There are occasional shades of Talking Heads and Mali-California fusion band Orchestra Gold. Great musicianship combined with a winning sense of playfulness.