Gyakie Balances Romance and Range on “After Midnight”

Gyakie’s After Midnight was named after the period in which most of the inspiration for its songs came—the moonlight hours when the world slept and melodies and lyrics in the 25-year old Ghanaian singer’s head spun to life. The songs it contains are similarly alive–bursting with the mellifluousness of a  voice that persists six years after our introduction to it; sweet-smelling with the petals of romance that are lined in nearly every hook and chorus. After Midnight, too, is traditionally a time when the feelings of love and lust are thought to be at their peak, and Gyakie’s album is brimming with passion, painted in a variety of scenarios over a selection of genres.

A lot of After Midnight’s appeal stems from the focused maturity with which she applies her obvious talent. Four years ago, Forever—and especially its Omah Lay assisted remix—was most of the world’s first contact with her sonorous voice, her full heart and her dexterity with melodies. After Midnight, nearly half a decade after, is in some ways a continuation and completion of this single track. It is set in the love-filled world that Gyakie, the hopeless romantic, navigates, while a handful of diverse, yet consistently impressive male guests provide much-welcome romantic foils and inject freshness into the album’s somewhat narrow focus. But Gyakie accomplishes most of the diversifying herself—contorting her voice and melodies into a production palette that largely sticks to the midtempo bouncy track, but easily borrows from Reggae, Afrosoul, Rap and more.

Gyakie’s outlook on love has matured in step with her age, but the heartfelt yearning persists underneath it all, so After Midnight’s brightest sparks come when Gyakie is able to paint her general theme of love in particularly vivid strokes. You hear it on the standout Breaking News, where she pledges to be around “for better or for worse,” her declaration strengthened by an alluring midtempo production. She allows herself to get even more lovesick: “Guess why I dey kolo for you, guess why I go give you every loving that I have for you.” Amongst its many strengths, what stands out most clearly from After Midnight is a fine-tuning of the balance between bouncy Afropop music and well-fleshed themes. These two factors also ensure her 17-track album can always keep your attention.

The album’s eponymous interlude is the thread that connects it all. Situated nearly halfway through, Gyakie outlines her ethos: “O baby I love you, I love you, I love/ wherever you are, I wanna get close to you, all day long.” It’s the album’s thematic center, from which most of its other songs derive their source. Unconditional promises a love unrequiring of financial reciprocation: “Baby come and give me love, you no for pay, come make you dey my body make I feel okay.” Sankofa spins this yearning into an even more complicated, more compelling story: one of a woman asking a current partner to hold her tight as a measure against going back to a less healthy relationship with an ex. I’m Not Taken, which bears a certain rock element to it in its heavy drum set, sets similar demands, this time an ultimatum for a partner (played with deft and context by a brilliant Headie One) unwilling to get committed. These tracks espouse a certain hardened coating to Gyakie’s tender heart; one that has come with age and experience.

Producer Afrolektra is behind the boards for this trio of tracks—Breaking News, Sankofa, I’m Not Taken, and they are some of the album’s bubbliest, expertly set in that realm where Pop vigour is present alongside African influence; the realm that new age AfroPop artists aim to occupy in their world-conquering ambitions. Elsewhere, Gyakie expresses her love on more diverse productions, each one drawn from somewhere in her deceptively multigenre discography. harmattan features Shatta Wale for a Reggae leaning affair that is more sultry than the album’s average tone—”Make my body to bend like Avatar/ cold just dey enter body like harmattan” and reminiscent of early efforts like Love Is Pretty and Whine; fire on the mountain calls back to a slow Hip-hop style that she embraced more willingly in her career’s earlier days; damn u applies the brakes, slowing things down for an intimate affair on which a Gyakie and a 6lack harmonize vocals and trade blame as they watch a relationship crash to the ground.

When she does turn her attention from love and love interests, Gyakie looks inwards and confronts her fears and challenges. Being a star in the music industry comes with ups and downs, and especially so when you have a hit record early in your career and fail to replicate its impact for years later. no one is an anthem of self-acceptance that is really directed at herself: “Look at yourself in the mirror, do you like what you see? Yes you do”. But more than that, After Midnight seeks to poke holes through our understanding of reality and extend this vision to the next life: “I know when it’s time to go home, I’ll go in peace,” she continues. She expands on this in the contemplative Is It Worth It?, asking questions often left unspoken: “Do you believe in the afterlife from here, do you believe we have somewhere to go?/ Then I ask myself, is this life thing really worth it?”

Some answers are contained on the next track, the album closer hallelujah, which calls back to a time when albums, even part-romantic, part-sexy ones like this, were invariably closed out by religious tracks. Gyakie’s finale is upbeat in both sound and theme, and finds her singing to the mirror once more: “See all the big big things you’re doing at a very very young age/ you wanna see greatness, but God will make a way.” For an artist who has tasted both great wins and doubts in the course of her career, After Midnight is a testament to Gyakie’s persistence and growth over the last five years, and a stellar showcase of what happens when an intentional creative process meets glittering talent.