Teddy Osei

Francis Osei (17 December 1935 – 14 January 2025), known as Teddy Osei, was a Ghanaian musician who was a saxophone player, drummer and vocalist, and best known as the leader of Afro-pop. Quotes A star is not born in a day.  You must learn and completely give yourself to what you are doing.I enjoyed being part of Osibisa because it is not all people who are cut out to be successful solo acts. Comets was a good band that made some name in West Africa before I left for Europe in 1962. Though people in places such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria didn’t understand the Twi language we sang in, some of our recordings sold in those places. Music is not about creating for your local market alone. You must think of reaching as many people as possible while retaining what is essentially your identity in music. I only needed help to get on stage. After that, the disability disappeared.  I felt no pain. I felt completely fine when I played music. That was the magic of music, especially when you genuinely love it. Teddy Osei takes final bow at 88, January 18 2025 It was time to get the Osibisa drums banging again. Recording the album during lockdown was not easy as the musicians could not be in the same studio together. But we were determined to create a collection of melodic happiness and we are immensely proud of it. I had wanted to be a musician ever since my father took me to the Asantehene’s palace to listen to the drummers. In Ghana I was  a name but not in England. i already knew how to sing and play the sax, flute and drums, but I needed to develop my skills, And I did. It was a very good school for the three years I attended. Fela, Labbi Siffri and Ebo Taylor all went there, and it was very handy for being close to all the Soho clubs. My aim was to play professionally so I began to look for other Ghanaians who could join me. We played a little bit of highlife, jazz, and James Brown, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett – at the time American soul music was being played everywhere. We started to write new songs for a new sound, a unique mix of highlife, rock, blues and jazz – ‘Afro-rock’, though we didn’t call it that then. We made a good living but by the time we got back to London people had forgotten all about us and there was nothing happening. My landlady was Greek and didn’t mind us playing our music. The foundation had been laid but they made the music more exciting and more unique. I called the group Osibisa to reflect where the music came from, Fante Newtown in Kumasi, where all different kinds of music were developed.  ‘Osibi’ means highlife and ‘sa’ means to dance. After that, Stevie and I became very tight friends and he jammed with us again during our appearance at Festac in 1977 in Lagos stadium in front of 80,000 people. Everybody was talking about this new sound. Then Bronze Records, who had Uriah Heap, Manfred  Mann and Marianne Faithful on their books, came to listen to us play at the Tollington Arms pub [in north London]. They liked what they saw and signed us there and then. For a black band to have a white management was quite a thing then. After the gig he came to our dressing room and announced ‘Now you are my babies’. It was an amazing moment. After that, we just exploded. The reception was always wilder than wild and we were the talk of the town for a long time. It was phenomenal,.  They loved us in Australia, Japan and the US but India was a place we conquered without expecting to. No, after doing the hard work in the studio, the time to enjoy is when you are on stage. At my mention of Afro-beat king Fela, he says, I met Fela several time and he was a real fan of ours. Fela got all his rhythm side from Ghana. Our music was exciting and inspired bands all over the world. We brought people together and made them happy. That is Osibisa’s legacy. Teddy Osei: ‘Happiness was our vibe’, September 19 2021 Category:Vocalist Category:Drummers Category:People from Ghana Category:1935 births Category:2025 deaths