Name: Osekre and The Lucky Bastards
 
Where They’re From: Brooklyn, New York (by way of Accra, Ghana)
 
When They Started: 2010
 
For Fans of: K’naan, Keziah Jones, Jupiter & Okwess International, Throes + The Shine
 
Genre: Afropop meets ska/punk
 
Sounds Like: Making something out of nothing and getting hyped off of life
 
The origin story for Osekre and The Lucky Bastards begins in the 1980s. Somewhere in that decade Osekre (full name: Ishamel Osekre) was born in Accra, Ghana to a loving mother and a father who had no interest in fatherhood. Osekre is candid about flipping the script about that fact from something painful into something celebratory about the fortuitous experience of simply being born. He’s proud to be a “lucky bastard.”
 
The music of Osekre and The Lucky Bastards is alive with treasuring every moment. They play a hybrid of Afropop and ska, punk, and reggae that is equally indebted to Osekre’s Ghanaian heritage and the Brooklyn DIY/garage/indie scene that thrived in the late 2000s. At that time, Osekre was studying at Columbia University. He was writing and performing poetry and found the music scene to be the perfect outlet to have his work reach more people. His backing band, The Lucky Bastards, has been a rotating collection of performers that currently includes a drummer, guitarist, bassist, saxophonist, and trombonist.
 
There’s an urban grittiness to the music that is less tropical than traditional Jamaican ska and instead is more connected to the riotous British quality of the second wave ska scene. Meanwhile, Osekre’s gruff delivery is pure Afropunk. The band has an improvisational, jammy quality that Osekre relates to Ghanaian jama music, which comes from the Ga people. Traditionally, a jama is when a circle of people create polyrhythms using drums, gongs, clapping and singing as a form of cheerleading.
– MTV IGGY
 
Osekre’s upbeat and ambient blend of afropunk serves as a culmination of influences that he picked up through absorbing the soundtracks of his two homes, Ghana and New York. Everything from K’naan to the Strokes, Fela Kuti to the Ramones, even Bob Marley to the Stones can be heard in Osekre’s sound. With the mentality of a Caribbean beach party and the intensity of a Bushwick loft party, Osekre And The Lucky Bastards are always sure to be an interesting time. They come to the stage with a style of world music thoroughly updated and curated for New York City in 2014, and despite how strange it might sound, it really succeeds in its goals. The quintet’s mission is clear form the first note of the set—these boys want every single member of their crowd up and dancing the night away, and they will stop at nothing to make that happen.
 
Rise and Dance are made to get you to, well, rise and dance. Sweet Mother and Mother Told Me are joyous odes to the singer/songwriter’s mother, who raised him in Ghana before he came to New York in the mid-2000s to attend Columbia University. He’s quickly become a staple of Brooklyn’s DIY scene in a career that has already lead the Lucky Bastards to multiple appearances at CMJ Music Marathon, Northside Festival, NPR’s Greene Space.
– CMJ
 
Osekre and The Lucky Bastards official site
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Osekre and The Lucky Bastards on Bandcamp
Osekre and The Lucky Bastards on Soundcloud
 
Photo credit: Julia Pearl Robbins