Asase Ba Podcast - S1E0: Welcome to Asase Ba
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Asase Ba, a podcast that honours oral tradition and shines light on Ghanaian culture and stories that are often untold or silenced. I'm your host Michelle. So I want to do this minisode of Asase Ba just to introduce the podcast and tell you a bit about my inspiration with creating this podcast and just a little bit about myself and all of that fun stuff.
So Asase Ba is a seasonal show, so we’re currently in season one. And I created this podcast — before I tell you about why I created it — Asase Ba, that is Twi for Earth’s child.
And I was inspired by two things for the name of the podcast: number one is Asase Yaa, who in traditional Akan spirituality is Mother Earth, so just an ode to that. And also the second thing, Asase Ba literally means Earth’s child and with this podcast, the goal is to amplify the voices of us—Earth’s children— and just to show our stories, our experiences, our culture as Ghanaians and all of that. So there's a little context to that.
And with this, I'm really trying to honour our traditional Ghanaian way of storytelling, which is through the oral tradition. I wanted to find a way to merge our Ghanaian way of passing information with today — modern day technology and podcasting which is what I really love.
I love podcasts and I'm an avid listener and all that so I wanted to merge those two things I guess — storytelling, oral tradition with podcast and that’s why and how I created Asase Ba, and how that came to be.
And the goal of this podcast really is to tell the stories and amplify the voices of Ghanaians. And I wanted to, in particular, really shine light on stories that are often untold or silenced or ignored or dismissed. We all come in various identities and we all have different experiences and no one is more important than others.
And we all deserve to be heard. We all deserve to be seen. Our voices deserve that platform. So I wanted to really showcase the nuances of Ghanaian folks and our many intersections.
So I'm going on about what this podcast is about and you don’t know too much about me, so just a little blurb about myself: Michelle again, that's my name and I have a passion for storytelling, self-reflection, creativity, and futurism.
I’m really into Afrofuturism and I'm also into preserving and exploring my Ghanaian culture and history. So even in doing this podcast, I'm learning more about my history and my culture and all of that, so it's been really, really rewarding doing this podcast and just being part of the creative folks that are putting our stories out there and stuff. So this is such a rewarding experience for me.
To join in on the conversation use #AsaseBaPod. You can also follow the podcast page @AsaseBaPod on Twitter just so you can show me that you're listening and I want the conversation to continue, respectfully of course. And if you also have any questions or feedback email asasebapod@gmail.com.
Thank you so much for listening and I'm so, so, so excited that this is out now. This has been months in the making, the idea has been way longer than that. And I know I’ve always wanted to create a podcast and I also wanted to just really talk about Ghanaian culture and history. I'm so glad that the idea of illuminating and highlighting our stories came to me through the idea of a podcast. And I will catch you in the next episode, see ya. Bye!
Episode Notes
Welcome to Asase Ba! In this minisode, host and producer Michelle introduces herself, talks about the meaning of "Asase Ba", her inspiration behind the podcast, oral tradition, and amplifying the voices of folks whose stories are often untold.
Join in on the conversation! Use the hashtag #AsaseBaPod.
SUPPORT
E-transfer or via PayPal to asasebapod@gmail.com. Thank you so much for your support.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsaseBaPod
HOST
This podcast is produced, edited and hosted by Ghanaian Canadian Michelle (pronouns: she/her). She is also the creator of the theme music.
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