Castello Enters Music Scene

By Stephen K. Effah
Thursday, 02 October 2008

Francis Jojo Cann, a U.K-based Ghanaian singer, has made his entry to the Ghanaian music landscape with his debut album set to make waves on the international front.

The seven-track R&B album, which touches on love and life, is designed to break the barrier of low patronage of the hip-life genre that has not gained the expected recognition on the world arena.

Titled: "The Stick Up Kid," the album that has tracks like All I Need,Tell Me, Lyfe, The Burning Rose and It’s A Shame, is exclusively in English, and features Bandana, Kansa, Samita and Djin.
"I want my music to be heard worldwide and build my own fan base. I hope to make inroads," Cann told the TW in an interview on Wednesday.

He pointed out that just as Nigerian artistes who are doing R&B music have been able to penetrate other frontiers and been able to build fan base across those areas, he could do same with his slow jam music through determination.

He said Ghanaians have come to love slow jam or R&B music, hence the need as a musician to come up with songs to satisfy them saying, "Ghanaians listen to cool music."

Also known as Don Jojo Castello, Cann said his debut album which is woven in a poem forms means a lot to him. "It’s like an exhibition of art, but it came in a form of music portray," he said.

Touching on the songs on the album, he said life for instance, talks about the hurdle and troubles one endures when being raised by a single parent, which he relates to his own experience as a child raised by her mother only.

"It talks about how what mama, my sisters and I had to deal with when dad left. But any way we made it to this far," he said.

"I was brought up in a church but always see myself as a lost soul, as a child growing up, it wasn’t very pleasant, things were very hard in those days and mama had to go through a lot," he recounted.

On the Ghanaian music scene, he said: "I am not happy about the music industry," noting that issues of royalties and payola need to be tackled seriously.

He recalled how an Accra private radio presenter in a radio station at Kokomlemle who promised to help him, collected 100 Ghana Cedis as payola before granting him an interview. "That isn’t helping us", he added.

The presenter, according to him told him he would use some of the money to "sought his boss out".

The singer, who is also a poet, told the TW that he hopes to set up a music studio in Ghana and a live band to help grow the industry. He is also working on poetry book
Cann, who was born in Leeds in the UK was raised in Ghana. He went to Martyrs of Uganda at Mamprobi and proceeded to the Kinbu Secondary Technical where he graduated in 1995.

He started music at an early stage in the UK where he found himself holding position as a lead tenor in his local choir.

"For me it’s the only thing I love doing because I wasn’t really good in class but I try to find some thing I could escape to and with God, every thing is possible," he said.