This event will now take place at Le Poisson Rouge on April 2, 2022. Tickets can be purchased through LPR's website.

UPDATE: Ata Kak's previously scheduled performance at Pioneer Works has been rescheduled to April 2, 2022. This event will now take place at Le Poisson Rouge, and is presented in partnership with Pioneer Works.

All tickets for this event purchased from Pioneer Works through Eventbrite will remain valid for the new date at LPR. We will be accepting refund requests through Tuesday, February 15, 2022 for anyone who is unable to attend.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit LPR's website here.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us at boxoffice@pioneerworks.org should you have any questions.

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Ata Kak brings his funky, joyous, hybrid musical stylings to Pioneer Works in this rare US tour. Ata Kak is the Ghanaian electronic/rap/highlife icon who kick-started the Awesome Tapes From Africa phenomenon. After a long wait, he is finally embarking on his first ever tour of the US.

Ata Kak’s Obaa Sima cassette was first self-released in Ghana in 1994 to little recognition or interest. Yet when American musicologist Brian Shimkovitz stumbled upon the tape at a street stall in Cape Coast, Ghana eight years later, it became the stimulus for him to launch the Awesome Tapes from Africa blog. As he wrote in his inaugural post: “This is it. The song is called ‘Moma Yendodo.’ You may never hear anything like this elsewhere. No one I know in Ghana listens to this frenetic leftfield rap madness.”

The music on the recording—an amalgam of highlife, Twi language rap, funk, hip-hop, and electronica—traverses a pop music landscape that encapsulates international modes while reflecting contemporary Ghanaian music of the period. Presented with the sweaty passion of a Prince record and the lo-fi recording charm of early Chicago house music, Obaa Sima's joyous soul and casual brilliance made the enigmatic Ata Kak an underground internet sensation and party-starter the world over. After more than a decade of searching, Brian finally tracked down the singer and released the LP officially in March 2015.

“Its positive shine, relentless energy, and alien earworm choruses feel like a portal to an alternate reality, where the sounds of South Africa’s Shangaan electro, Mali’s Balani Show, Syria’s dabke, British grime, and Portuguese kuduro all sweat together.” – FACT Magazine