Known in the creative space as Jewell King-Speaks. Jewell is a dynamic and passionate spoken word artist from Ghana and he has won ten poetry slams in the country. He was the first to represent Ghana in the World Poetry Slam and he is known for captivating audiences with powerful performances that blend storytelling, social commentary, and cultural expression.
Jewell has performed internationally across West Africa and beyond, to amplify the voices of the marginalised and connect communities through art. He is also the cofounder of Back2kcab poetry and rhetoric orchestra.
Ancestors, Answer me – Ancestors Answer Me
This is AI with an afro,
Ancestral intelligence residing in the ghetto,
Constantly manufacturing questions like factory
smoke from the chimney of the brain,
Hoping answers drop like manna from the heavens
To make us act right and think sane again
We scribbled in hieroglyphs
An oral scripture written in breath,
The hands of these papyrus pages once held our
genesis till Alexandria turned to ash
We echo the words of Amadou Hampâté Bâ
“When an old person dies, a library burns.”
We lost our volumes written in the bloodline of our ancestors.
History reveals how the devil mimics miracles,
He saw the savior walk on water,
So he made the slave ship sail
But my ancestors summoned a new gospel,
They did not part seas to walk on dry land,
Because Harriet Thubman, the Black Moses
Wasn’t with them yet,
So they jumped into the atlantic and became a part of the tide
An apartheid of amphibious prophets
They knew water unfastens chains.
We had rivers at home but never learnt to swim
So we baptized ourselves in depths and freely
Released ourselves to the ocean floor like anchors
They say silence is golden, so our protest did not
come with speech but sign language, as we sank
Like prayers wrapped in silence,
This wasn’t Jordan but the savior still wept for us,
He cried a River.
Now, somewhere below the surface, an underwater tribe hums freedom
They are the lungs of Freetown
A people breathing the River Nile
Keeping vessels afloat with the Rhythm of their survival
But today we wear our chains like gold,
Rap verses laced in slavery’s echo,
Whips and chains have become symbols of status
And the Mater’s tool has become our drip
We are sick, but have neglected the antidote
So I ask,
With perforated palms like those of a colander
Leaking nothing but questions,
Ancestors, answer me
Are we free?
Or are we still slaves with unseen shackles?
