Stevie Wonder

  By Nehru Odeh

As his name signifies, he is a wonder to the world. He has wowed the world with his soulful music for over five decades.. He is the only artiste to have won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year with three consecutive album releases. He has won 22 Grammy Awards. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

However, Stevie Wonder, the blind genius who gifted the world with many unforgettable lyrics such as Lean on Me and Happy Birthday is not a happy man. He is not happy about the racial injustice and inequality in the United States. And that is the reason he plans to relocate to Ghana and live the rest of his life there.

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Wonder, whose real name is Stevland Hardaway Morris, made this disclosure in a chat with Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Conversation in November last year. He said he had already decided to move to Ghana, where he believes he will be valued and respected.

“I promise you [America], if you do the right thing, I will give you this song. I will give it to you. You can have it. Because I wanna see this nation smile again. And I want to see it before I leave to travel to move to Ghana, because I’m going to do that,”

Palpably rattled by that statement, Winfrey asked: You’re gonna move permanently to Ghana?”To which Wonder replied, “I am”, making the case that his decision laid with finding a receptive environment for his humanity. Wonder also expressed worry about his family.

“I don’t want to see my children’s, children’s children have to say ‘Oh please like me, please respect me, please know that I am important, please value me.’ What is that?” he asked.

The Happy Birthday crooner also said he wants the world to become a better place devoid of racial injustice.

“I want the world to get better. I want us to get beyond this place. I want us all to go to the funeral of hate. That’s what I want,” he maintained.

Still, that wasn’t the first time Wonder, who became blind shortly after his birth, had hinted at relocating to Ghana. In a 1994 speech to the International Association of African American Music, Wonder said he was planning to relocate to Ghana where he believed “there’s more of a sense of community”. He has been to the West African nation a few times in the past.

If Wonder makes his plan a reality he will join some notable African Americans and Caribbean nationals who relocated to Ghana at a point in their lives. The list includes Maya Angelou, famous author of I know Why the Caged Bird Sings who lived and taught in Ghana for a few years, and W.E.B. DuBois who stayed there until his death.