When Maxine Angel Opoku was nonetheless an upstart musician, comparatively unknown and struggling to face out in Ghana’s aggressive music scene, she sang about love, romance and being attractive.
Then, in August 2021, lawmakers within the nation’s parliament launched a invoice that might imprison individuals who determine as transgender, as Opoku does, and her artwork urgently turned to advocacy. Her music started to draw each legions of latest followers in addition to highly effective adversaries.
“Expensive Mr Politician, repair the nation proper now. The individuals who voted for you’re dissatisfied in you,” Opoku sings in one in all her newest songs. “Kill it, kill it, kill the invoice.”
Maxine Angel Opoku, who below the stage title Angel Maxine is Ghana’s solely overtly transgender musician, at residence in Accra on Oct 27. pictures: FRANCIS KOKOROKO/nyt
The topic of the music is the “Promotion of Correct Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Household Values Invoice,” which, if handed, would make figuring out as homosexual, transgender or queer a criminal offense punishable with a most jail sentence of 5 years.
As Ghana’s solely overtly transgender musician, Opoku, recognized on stage as Angel Maxine, is likely one of the most seen targets of the proposed laws in a rustic the place the homosexual and transgender neighborhood is essentially closeted.
“Music is the device for my advocacy,” Opoku mentioned in an interview in Accra, the capital of Ghana. “That is the one method my voice can attain the politicians, the president, the homophobes, the layperson.”
Identical-sex sexual acts are already criminalised in Ghana, partially due to a British colonial-era legislation, however it’s presently not a criminal offense to publicly determine as homosexual, transgender or queer.
In response to the proposed laws, Opoku launched a music known as Kill the Invoice and, shortly earlier than that, one other music, Wo Fie, which suggests “in your house,” within the Akan language, probably the most broadly spoken in Ghana.
Maxine Angel Opoku together with her mom, Faustina Araba Forson at residence in Accra. FRANCIS KOKOROKO /The New York Instances
Wo Fie talks about how LGBTQ folks could also be a part of each household, and requires tolerance and respect. Within the lyrics, Opoku sings about being unapologetically herself.
Opoku, the oldest of 5 kids, was born in Accra on Sept 3, 1985, to a clothier mom and a civil servant father.
“All people that noticed her would say: ‘Hey, you’ve a gorgeous woman,'” her mom, Faustina Araba Forson, 60, recalled. “Then I’d say: ‘No, it is a boy.'”
“She cherished carrying women’ attire, enjoying with the ladies,” Ms Forson added. “She was a lady trapped in a male physique.”
Faustina Araba Forson holds a childhood photograph of her little one Maxine Angel Opoku. FRANCIS KOKOROKO /The New York Instances
Nonetheless, it took Ms Forson a few years to just accept her daughter’s identification. Opoku recalled that mom and little one would frequent church buildings to listen to pastors, together with controversial Nigerian preacher T B Joshua, in search of to “solid the homosexual out”.
“At some point I used to be praying, and I heard God say, ‘I created her in my very own picture and I really like her,'” Ms Forson mentioned.
Opoku began out singing at residence throughout morning devotional prayers together with her household, and as an adolescent, she shadowed members of a now-defunct woman group. She started performing music as a girl in 2008 whereas finding out hospitality administration in Koforidua, a metropolis north of Accra.
It was a harmful endeavour. As soon as, throughout a set, a bottle was thrown from the viewers, placing her within the head, she mentioned.
With no label to again her or to sponsor recording classes, she put her music — whose sound is a fusion of Afropop, dance corridor and more and more well-liked Afrobeats — on maintain and as a substitute moved between jobs within the hospitality sector as a cook dinner and waitress, the place she confronted points corresponding to misgendering.
Even earlier than the specter of jail within the impending laws, to be overtly homosexual or transgender in Ghana was terribly dangerous, with these figuring out — or perceived to be — as such dealing with acts of violence from each strangers and their very own households. Employment discrimination and housing discrimination are frequent.
“Some get compelled into marriages, get thrown out of their properties. A few of them drop out of faculty as a result of they no extra have assist,” mentioned Leila Yahya, govt director of One Love Sisters, Ghana, an advocacy organisation for LGBTQ Muslims, and a pal of Opoku’s.
Opoku is likely one of the most seen targets of proposed laws that might make figuring out as homosexual, transgender or queer a criminal offense punishable by as much as 5 years in jail. FRANCIS KOKOROKO /The New York Instances
Opoku returned to music in 2018, and though defiance has received her followers on-line at residence and overseas, it has additionally marked her out. Her residence was ransacked and looted by a mob final yr, forcing her to reduce on public appearances. Opoku was not at residence when the mob attacked.
“They might have taken me to the police station, possibly I may have even died,” mentioned Opoku, who now performs hardly ever and solely in personal. “I may have been lynched.”
After Opoku’s residence was attacked, maverick musician Wanlov the Kubolor and his sister, referred to as Sister Deborah, helped her discover a protected area and started knowledgeable and private relationship. The siblings, lengthy seen as social contrarians in Ghana’s music trade, are featured on each Kill the Invoice and Wo Fie.
“It blew me away, the stuff she was residing with from day after day — financially, psychologically, bodily,” mentioned Wanlov the Kubolor. “I do not assume I may have survived that life.”
Opoku mentioned she additionally needs to be recognized for music unrelated to her activism. However that has been an unrealised ambition, to this point. A accomplished mini-album of nonadvocacy songs stays unreleased due to an absence of sponsorship, she mentioned.
For Wanlov the Kubolor, the current rise in Opoku’s public stature has been equal elements joyful and painful.
“It’s painful as a result of she may have bloomed a lot earlier, as a result of she has an excellent expertise, and she or he may have been a world star already,” he mentioned.
Maxine Angel Opoku applies make-up at residence. FRANCIS KOKOROKO /The New York Instances
Just lately, the music Wo Fie went viral on TikTok outdoors Ghana, and Wanlov the Kubolor believes Opoku’s growing worldwide visibility — though fraught with security dangers — may additionally function a protecting issue for her.
However Opoku is not so positive. “Each day is harmful for me,” she mentioned. “I can not stroll on the road as a standard particular person.”
Taking a bus is out of the query, she mentioned, as goes to the market. “I can not do lots of issues,” she mentioned.
Her daughter’s security is entrance of thoughts for Ms Forson, too. “I concern for my daughter loads,” she mentioned. “She is a vociferous particular person and so she is a goal, and I at all times pray that God ought to shield her.”
If handed, the invoice would criminalise constructive portrayals of queer life within the media, codify the broadly discredited pseudoscience of conversion remedy and compel the households and neighbours of LGBTQ folks to report them to the authorities.
Those that are arrested can keep away from jail by present process psychiatric and endocrinological therapy “to beat their vulnerabilities”. The invoice additionally states that allies who give any type of help to LGBTQ folks, corresponding to housing, might be sentenced to between 5 and 10 years in jail.
The proposed laws is backed by the nation’s highly effective spiritual leaders, politicians from the 2 main events and huge sections of the native media. It additionally has broad well-liked assist in a rustic the place a 2019 survey discovered that 93% of Ghanaians would dislike having a gay neighbour.
The invoice has additionally galvanised outspoken opposition from a small however influential coalition of native teachers, attorneys and rights activists.
Final month, the speaker of parliament, who has beforehand expressed assist for the laws, mentioned it was a precedence and can be handed earlier than the subsequent elections in 2024.
Maxine Angel Opoku poses for {a photograph}. FRANCIS KOKOROKO /The New York Instances
Due partially to the LGBTQ antipathy fomenting across the invoice, Opoku mentioned it was tough to see a future for herself in Ghana. It is almost unattainable for her to carry out freely in public now; the invoice would make it legally unattainable.
“I do not see a life right here for me,” she mentioned. “If I can not come out overtly, go on the streets to maneuver about my each day life, if I can not get a job, how do I maintain myself? That is no life.”
Regardless of the difficulties, she stays resolute about talking up for Ghana’s LGBTQ neighborhood within the face of this rising hostility.
Her subsequent music, she mentioned, will encourage at-risk folks to enroll in the HIV prevention tablet PrEP.
“I really feel like it’s a accountability,” Opoku mentioned. “If I win, folks like me may even win.”
She added: “Folks like me may even be happier, folks like me may even be at liberty.”
