Ehalakasa SheSheSlam Championship II

Ehalakasa SheSheSlam Championship II

by | Jan 17, 2023 | Events, Slam

Ehalakasa is the platform where spoken word (poetry) intersects with music.
Eha means Song in Ewe. La means Sing in Ga. Kasa means Talk in Akan (Twi).
These separate words are combined to form EHALAKASA. The basic intent for EHALAKASA is to address and deal with issues relevant to our time as a people, while projecting Ghanaian values. At Ehalakasa we discover, nurture, develop and empower youth in the areas of creative writing, reading and performance arts, through event production and workshops. EHALAKASA has evolved out of the response of artists’ and art lovers’ desire for the awakening and recognition of spoken word performance, live music and poetry in Accra and Ghana.

The SheSheSlam
SheShe is an all-women performance project open to only females. Our target is women of all ages and background based in Ghana with emphasis on young women. Slam as the name implies, is a crash in this case by words and ideas. SheSheSlam is a lyrical battle set between open-minded women who believe in the submission and exchange of thoughts through imagination and creativity within a timeframe of 3 minutes.

This slam is eligible only to females because we have realized a huge gap with regards to gender roles in general within the space of poetry slam and we want to bridge that gap. The poetry slam space, although is not a male-only field has been dominated by males over the years and thus, the need for us to rise up to the call to duty with SheSheSlam. We set to see women slam organizers from A to Z for the first time and to witness all key players during the slam taking the bull by the horn.

Our focus is on helping to raise and grow the interest of young women for the global slam community and allow them the space to voice out in the right direction. We are proud to mention the current National Slam Champion, Twita Lit who is also a former SheShe Slammer, is one of us. She is working towards representing Ghana at the next Africa Cup of Poetry Slam in Bamako this year and later to the World Poetry Slam Championship in Brazil.

This is the road map for SheSheSlam, we are calling on all individuals; women support groups and stake holders who believe and see eye with us on this.

SLAM RULES
The slam is a three (3) round healthy battle of performances where slammers perform their originally written spoken word pieces before a live audience to be judged by five (5) randomly selected audience members as judges on the scale of one to ten (1 – 10).

After each performance, slam master will drop one (1) high score and one (1) low score then add up the three (3) scores in between to make up the total score for the performance. This will make 30 the highest score.

Each piece or performance must be within 3 minutes. A Slammer has a 10 seconds grace period after which one (1) point will be deducted from slammers total score.

No props are allowed (no music, no costume, no use of any object apart from your body)

30 seconds singing allowed but no instrumentals

We are so excited to see you all at the Silverbird Cinemas, Accra Mall on Saturday March 11, 2023.

SheSheSlam – “The future is SheShe”.

Ehalakasa, It lives in us!

Twita Lit – EHALAKASA NATIONAL GRAND SLAM CHAMPION 2022

Twita Lit – EHALAKASA NATIONAL GRAND SLAM CHAMPION 2022

by | Jan 1, 2023 | Events, Scripts, Slam

Over the years, poets and spoken word artistes across the length and breadth of the country battled it all out for the biggest title on the poetry landscape; “The National Slam Champion”. The search for the 2022 slam champion began in June. There were three(3) preliminary stages and at each stage the top 3 qualified to the final stage. Thirty-six (36) spoken-word artistes/ poets took part in this year’s championship. The roadmap to the finals had some special features to it. The Third preliminary was a double contest because the winner did not only qualify to the grand slam, but also qualified to represent Ghana at the next FESPACO Gold Slam which will take place in February, 2023 at Ouagadougou – Burkina Faso. Jewel King-Speaks emerged winner, making him the country’s representative at the FESPACO Gold Slam. At the end of all three preliminary battles, Faiba, Chessed, Afi, Jewel king-speaks,
Nana Kuffour, Twita-lit , Baby Poet, Briana and Wiseborn qualified to the finals which took place on 30th December 2022 at the Silverbird Cinemas in Accra.

This year’s National Slam Championship finale was intriguing and highly competitive, as each slammer brought their A-game. Big Names in the Ghanaian creative Arts industry such as Martin Egblewogbe (the first person to win a Slam in Ghana), Apiorkor Ashong-Abbey, Nana Asaase, Hondred Percent, Vitus Zulee, amongst others came in to witness history as it was being brewed.
It was a tough word war with all standard slam rules in place; 3 minutes per performance, original written pieces and no use of props.
Slammers went neck to neck with their performances, each showing their poetic prowess but at the end of the day 22 year old Twita-Lit also know as Theresa Kuffour, emerged winner of Ehalakasa National Slam Championship, 2022. She took home a trophy and a ticket to represent Ghana at the next Africa Cup of Poetry Slam in Bamako, Mali and later to the World Poetry Slam Championship in Brazil.
Jewel-King Speaks came in second, trailing behind Twita-lit with just a point and Afi and Nana Kuffuor came in third place.
It was an amazing sight to behold and it’s much evident that there is a bright future for spoken word poetry slam in Ghana.