“Odo” is the Twi word for love, and Nana Osei Twum Barima wrote it around a reunion. The track pairs the Ghanaian musician with his uncle, the Accra seperewa master Osei Korankye, the man who paid for his university studies and first taught him the instrument. They had spent years apart while Nana built a new life in Ghent, and when they finally sat together again, Korankye kept returning to one idea: that love is the solution.

Born in Ghana in 1999 and now based in Ghent, Nana is a singer, percussionist and dancer who studied traditional music and dance at the University of Winneba, with the seperewa, an Akan harp-lute, at the centre of everything he plays. “Odo” is the latest single extracted from Journey to the Unknown, his debut album for the Belgian label Zephyrus Records, released on 12 June.

The record tells his own story, shaped by the early loss of his father and the upheaval of moving to Europe, and love is the note it keeps returning to. Korankye is one of the few keeping the seperewa alive in Ghana, where the double-course harp-lute came down from the Sahel and nearly disappeared once the guitar took hold. He teaches it at the University of Ghana in Legon, and on “Odo” the two players bring their harps together, nephew and uncle on the instrument that links them.

Listen to “Odo” and get your copy of Journey to the Unknown HERE