1.

The first place is a conference room, sleekly designed in a sort of new-age, minimalist way, at the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy (CFA), a gated complex alongside one of many dirt roads in Labadi. A man named Andrew Awuni who resembles a slightly grayed Stringer Bell – yet seems to represent everything the fictional “The Wire” kingpin doesn’t – apologizes to a room full of reporters for his lecturing tone. He is also a teacher, he says.

On this day, Awuni is a whistleblower. Ghana’s parliament has just approved extensive new tax measures with the intention of raising 371 million Ghana “Cedis”, which equates to just less than 200 million U.S. dollars. In studying the Auditor General’s Report from 2011, Awuni and his staff at the CFA found that poor treasury management of outstanding loans had resulted in the loss of such an exorbitant total of public funds that simply recovering said loans would close the financial gap, and then some. Instead, the government is reaching into the Ghanaian everyman’s pockets to make up for its own mistakes.

After delivering his speech, Awuni implores us reporters to ask questions, any questions at all, questions that will allow us to better understand what is at stake so that the Ghanaian people will better understand what is at stake.

“Don’t think what is happening is far from you,” he tells us. “It is right here at your doorstep.”

One or two questions arise. Then, the conference ends.

2.

The second place is Ghana’s National Theatre. Tonight, we are at the BASS Awards, Ghana’s inaugural reggae and dancehall awards show. Extravagant neon-lit tree sculptures, red carpet reporters and popcorn hawkers line the theater’s front steps. Inside, the genre’s finest sing about everything from the role of African teachers to, well, sex and stuff. But none of the performing artists demand the most attention of the night.

Not under the shadow of Shatta Wale.

The first screams of his name come from a trio of bejeweled twenty-something men directly behind us. Clueless as to why the crowd fills every interval of silence with the same refrain, I figure why not. When in Ghana…

So I start screaming too:

“SHATTA WALE!!!!”

As the event progresses, the hosts and award presenters join in on the fun, shouting his name to elicit cheers from an otherwise docile crowd. One lauds his performance from the night before, calling it “historic” and alluding to him as “Jesus Christ on the cross.” At first, I think that’s a bold statement in a country as deeply Christian as Ghana. Then, I learn that Shatta Wale literally arrived on stage pinned to a cross. Alrighty, then.

Later in the awards show, an all-women trio pulls him from his seat in the front row onto the stage and treats him to a mid-song dance more akin to what I know to be the “bump and grind” tradition than the “Ghanaian” one. Shatta Wale has hijacked the BASS Awards. Then, flanked by an extensive entourage, he leaves before the show concludes. He receives not a single nomination. He performs not a single song. He says not a single word.

And he is absolutely freaking beloved by seemingly everyone in the building.

3.

The third place is the side of Ring Road. Ernest, my fellow intern at the Daily Guide, is showing me the way to the Foreign Exchange center nearest our office. This thoroughfare seems to play host to a particularly audacious slew of tro-tros and taxis that weave between lanes to shave precious seconds off their journeys. We walk on the shoulder opposite of traffic, ignoring every taxi that honks its invitation to climb aboard.

Ernest tells me he likes to DJ in his free time. I ask him about the Ghanaian music scene. There are two distinct yet similarly named genres, he explains – “highlife” and “hiplife.” Highlife is a form of African pop featuring prominent jazz horns and guitars with roots going back to 1920. Hiplife is a new variation of the form with hip-hop influences. Ernest says his favorite highlife artist is Kwabena Kwabena.

I ask him about Shatta Wale and Ernest says that he only makes noise, not true Ghanian music. He creates controversy. He brings attention to himself.

As I continue to research Shatta’s rise in the Ghanaian scene, I learn he wasn’t nominated at the BASS Awards because he pulled himself from contention after his comments about a pair of other popular artists drew public scourge. His act of contrition, paired with a reportedly five-hour long set at the BASS Awards’ promotional concert festival the night before, a set in which he broke down in tears, positioned Shatta for an onslaught of love as he sat in the theater’s front row.

Despite Ernest’s disapproval and a musical style a bit more reliant on theatrics than lyricism to tickle my fancy, I can’t dismiss Shatta’s appeal. He blends hiplife, reggae, and dancehall with dashes of undeniable American influence. His music is an is unlike anything I have ever heard. The “Shatta Movement” is real. Shatta Wale, for better or worse, is impossible to ignore.

Down Ring Road, Ernest and I arrive to the ForEx. A clerk takes my American money and makes it Ghanaian. Ernest waits outside. I then ask him whether he’s ever left Ghana. He says no – he’s not much the traveling type.

4.

The fourth place is the dungeon inside Elmina Slave Castle’s “Door of No Return.” We are touring the castle as part of our weekend trip to the Cape Coast. The door has been re-titled the “Door of Return” to represent the invitation for descendants of the African diaspora to return to their ancestors’ homes. Nearby is the castle’s “Punishment Cell,” where resistance leaders were locked away in a dark, congested room, and left there until every last one had died. Below the castle is “Slave River,” where slaves were given their first and last bath, shaved to look young and attractive, and branded for easy identification.

On the second floor, there is a chapel. This is where the Dutch slave traders prayed. Down the hall, a dining room. This is where the Dutch slave traders ate. Directly below these rooms, thousands of slaves awaited a journey overseas – or death – in dark, disease-ridden dungeons overflowing with human waste. The ceilings were thin. The slaves screamed. The traders heard. The traders continued to worship. The traders continued to eat.

These details allow for us to imagine suffering. We can grow angry at the breaches of basic humanity. It is easy to feel sad, angry, and disturbed at the notion of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on a micro level. We can close our eyes and put ourselves in these slaves’ position and feel pain.

But what about the slave traders? What about these men who dined while their fellow men and women starved beneath their shoes? It is convenient to ignore this fact, but it is a fact, and it must be addressed: slave traders were human beings too. They were born, they were a child, and they grew to be an adult. Just like you. Just like me.

Easy response: yeah, but they were evil. But writing off the enormity of the slave trade’s tradition (as Carson has pointed out, the Old Testament is riddled with references to slavery) as the result of a few bad eggs isn’t just shortsighted. It’s counterproductive.

This is not to excuse these men’s actions. Slavery may very well be the most horrific practice in human history. But somewhere along the line, the idea of treating another human being as property – neglected, tortured property at that – became acceptable. A series of moral compromises were made, and it resulted in something that has shifted the world we live in irrevocably.

In the dungeon beside the “Door of No Return,” our tour guide demands of us two things: first, to join him in singing “Amazing Grace,” commonly sung by slaves awaiting the start of their journey west. Then, he asks us to repeat: “Never again.”

Initially, I am taken aback. So far, I’ve had little to remind me of the parallels between my vacation as a white man in Ghana and what the first white men did here. By and large, the Ghanaian people have welcomed me with adoration and good will. I wonder – is he suggesting that I could ever be capable of getting involved in something like the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?

Then it hits me. I could be. We all could be. Therein lies the value of visiting Elmina Castle. The well-worn quote goes: “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” There is always the potential for evil to infest an individual, a community, an entire population.

Ensuring history doesn’t repeat itself is not accomplished through inaction. It is a concerned effort that we all must make. I have not felt a shred of bitterness emanating from the Ghanaian people. There is however an overwhelming sense of a shared, shameful past. We must move on. But more importantly, we must remember.

5.

The fifth and final place is a tro-tro en route from American House Road to Nima Police Station. I am listening to music on my iPod, as I often do on tro-tros – it helps to distract me from the steel bar digging into my knees or the fumes of burning trash or whatever else I can think to complain about. On this tro-tro, however, it’s really not necessary – whereas most tro-tros are minivans with five rows tightly fitting three or four passengers each, this tro-tro is a legitimate bus. With an aisle. Crazy, right?

I am listening to a song I often have on this trip – “Blood on the Leaves” by Kanye West (Disclaimer – not recommended listening to the easily offended). An especially provocative piece off his recently released and critically acclaimed album YEEZUS, “Leaves,” like many of the album’s ten songs, references slavery. It samples Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit,” a classic that tells the story of slaves on a plantation. However, as he is wont to do, Kanye does something very unexpected as he raps over the sample – he makes no mention of slavery at all. Instead, he tells a story about a drug-addled romantic fling.

What.

Remember Shatta Wale? Let’s talk about Shatta Wale again, because I’ve noticed numerous parallels between Shatta and Kanye. Both enjoy likening themselves to Jesus Christ – and suffice it to say, are shameless in marketing their own egos. Both have transcended genre and rose to massive popularity because of it.

And both have gathered far greater influence over the general population than your average cause-concerned intellectual. They talk, people listen. People beg to hear more.

This was not the case with Andrew Awuni.

On our first day in Ghana, Doctor Michael Williams described the Ghanaian population as “peaceful to a fault.” Their jovial attitudes toward daily life makes for safe communities, but also somewhat of a lack of motivation to work towards improving widespread poverty and other public issues that reduce quality of life. He also described the population as having an exceedingly young population. These are the people in a position to make real change for their future, much like we millenials in the states.

Put a twenty-one year old Ghanaian in a room with Andrew Awuni and Shatta Wale. Who do they most likely turn to? I’ll answer that question with an answer to a different question. Put me in a room with Andrew Awuni and Kanye West, and who do I turn to? No doubt about it – Kanye West.

As I listen to “Blood on the Leaves,” I think about the tour guide’s warning. Does this song serve to help remember? Or does it serve to help forget? Does Kanye use his party-anthem style lyrics to access a youth potentially disinterested in the history of slavery, or is he mishandling an opportunity to more directly discuss it?

I feel a hand on my arm. There is a little girl in the aisle, maybe two, maybe three. Her mother sits, and she remains standing for a moment as the tro-tro begins to move. Her hair is pulled tightly into a ponytail, and she wears a pink sweater. She continues to hold on to my arm so as not to fall, and stares at the strange, tall obruni on the bus.

I pull out my headphones and smile at her. She smiles back.

She has never heard of Kanye West or Shatta Wale or Andrew Awuni, and may have heard a mention of but surely doesn’t understand the roles of Ghana and the United States in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. As I’m racking my brain for perspective, searching for ways to better understand my role in the world around me both immediate and vast, she is worried about one thing – balance.

Then, her mother pulls her onto her lap. Within minutes, the little girl from Ghana is asleep.

I get off the tro-tro and walk to work, like most of Ghana, most of the states, and most of the world – taking one step at a time.