February 1, 2022
By: Patrick Yatta Conteh
While many young musicians and talented artists are currently more on genres like the Afro beats, hip hop, RnB amongst others; a young female artiste in Sierra Leone that goes by the stage name of Fantacee Wiz has brought great artistry or great spice to folklore.
Fantancee Wiz is a folklore singer born in Kabala, Koinadugu District in the Northern part of Sierra Leone.
In March 1991, Sierra Leone witnessed a deadly civil war that lasted for eleven years which made her relocate to the capital city Freetown.
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music.
Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments amongst others. Over the years Africa has produced lots of folk singers like Nigerian’s Babatunde Olatunji, Mali’s Grammy Award-winning Oumou Sangaré and Salifu Keita, Benin’s Angélique Kidjo to name a few.
‘I started my career as a folksinger in 2015 because I always had the passion to express myself and tell story through folk music.
Secondly, there is so much beauty in Sierra Leone folk music that people in the country shy away from’ Fantacee Wiz explained. She said she wants to be one of the people that showcase the country’s culture, tradition and storytelling via folk music.
She said most of her songs are produced using traditional instruments like kondi, kongoma, bata, segureh, balangi to name but a few.
‘Hearing the sounds of the various aforementioned instruments put together gives me chills and great inspiration to do more good music.’ Fatancee Wiz said.
She said folk music is as much as or if not more lucrative than other popular genre music in the country, adding that people tend to shy away from it because they have little or no idea of its importance. “Almost everything I have acquired came from my career as a traditional singer. I have built a house and bough a car in my career as a folk singer and I have been hired to performed in different countries in the world”, Fantancee Wiz explained.
In her career as folk singer, Fantacee Wiz has been nominated in multiple awards and has won more than fifty awards both national and international which she described as a blessing to her and the country as a whole.
She said she is unbothered by the lifestyle of other artiste who follow popular genre like Hip Pop, Afrobeat, R&B etc., adding that she has never not once in her career as a folk singer thought about leaving folk music for other t genre of music.
“Because of my consistency on traditional music, I have inspired so many young artistes to have love for the genre as so many of them want to be like me”, Fantacee explained.
Fantacee Wiz said she has a lot to offer in folk music in the country, adding that one of her greatest plans or dreams is to have collaboration with legendary folk singers across Africa with Salifu Keita topping the list which she said she admires a lot.
She said she is saddened by the fact that her music is mostly appreciated internationally than that of national which she is optimistic will change in the future.
Recently, Fantacee Wiz has been nominated in the Global Music Awards Africa 2022 in the category of Female Artiste of the year which she described as a tap on the back to do more.
She called on people to be unique in whatever they are doing as that will help them excel in their profession.