Atimevu, Sunday Wahala

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courtesy Sunday Wahala

The band Sunday Wahala.

Sunday Wahala

media release: Sunday Wahala, a new Madison band, and Atimevu will play at the Harmony Bar in Madison on June 17, 9:00 pm. It will be Sunday Wahala’s premier Madison show and a celebration of Atimevu’s 20th anniversary.

Sunday Wahala is a fun dance band that plays samplings from the African diaspora: Afrobeat, reggae, and R&B, a mix of originals and remade covers. The band has deep roots in Madison. Tim Gruber and Barbara Chusid played in Shekere, an iconic Madison dance band in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now Akornefa Akyea, daughter of Shekere frontman Aggo Akyea, is the lead singer for Sunday Wahala. Also in the group is Gruber’s son Martin Gruber.

“Wahala” means trouble. The Sunday in the name is because the group has been rehearsing on Sundays and because Sunday is a chill day.

Akornefa Akyea, vocals and bass, is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. She also plays flute and keyboards. She went on tour with Ghanaian pop artist Ata Kak in 2022. A graduate of Columbia University, she recently started working at UW-Madison in the Admissions Office.

Barbara Chusid, keyboards, has played in Supervillain Fire Drill, Tani Diakite and the Afrofunkstars, the Getaway Drivers and the Cowgirl Sweethearts, among other bands. She toured nationally with singer songwriter Deidre McCalla. She taught music in the Madison schools for 32 years. 

Tim Gruber, drums, has played in Kikeh Mato, Atimevu, Madison Marimba Quartet, Vacant Church, and other bands over the years. He taught music in the Madison Public Schools for 30 years. Now he works at the Madison Children’s Museum and likes skiing in the winter and gardening in the summer.

Martin Gruber, guitar, has been studying classical guitar for 10 years. He is a senior at Madison West High School and will graduate on June 10. He will attend UW-Madison in the fall and will be majoring in computer science. He likes skiing, playing soccer and playing video games.

Atimevu was formed in Madison in 2003, as an offshoot from an earlier band, Kweku Ananse and the Sweet Vibrations, that was formed by Djam Vivie and Tim Gruber in 1997. Atimevu was formed to focus exclusively on playing traditional music of Ghana.

Lead drummer Emmanuel Eku was a member of Ghana Dance Ensemble, the national performing arts group of Ghana, before coming to the United States. He is from Yamoransa, near Cape Coast, Central Region, Ghana. He started playing atumpani (talking) drums at the age of four. He played for chiefs in the Central Region of Ghana. As drummer for the Ghana Dance Ensemble, he traveled around the world, including the U.S., U.K., India, and Nigeria.

Other current members are Nicky Sund, Michael Kpodo, Justin Klein, Ben Ballweg, Djam Vivie, and Tim Gruber. The group performs energetic drumming and songs with call and response singing from Ghana. They have given many performances in Madison and around Wisconsin over the years. In 2018, they traveled to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to play for the African World Peace Festival.

Eku said that “communication and meeting each other has helped us stay together all this time.”

Sund said that “we are happy playing music together and sharing that joy with our audience.”

The group kept going during the pandemic by meeting outside in Tenney Park to practice, weather permitting.