A copywriter by profession, Ghananian-Dutch poet Adelaide Babette Van Aalst became a Spoken Word artist professionally just about a year and half ago. Known in the Ghanaian Spoken Word community as MsBredd, her journey started in a studio session with a producer friend.
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“I’ve always been a writer for many years. I started writing poetry when I was 13, but it wasn’t until the beginning of last year I started performing. It all started with one studio session, when I found myself recording over a beat a friend gave me. My producer friend, Jayso, suggested it would be a great idea for me to become a spoken word artiste. I guess I pretty much [ran] with the idea.”
It hasn’t been easy managing both careers, though, ”It has definitely been a challenge because my job is very demanding and sometimes conflicts with times I have to be in the studio recording or writing and performing, but I definitely make it happen.”
Since officially starting, MsBredd has performed at Paapa’s Concert at Alliance Francaise; Cupid’s Soiree, which was headlined by the amazing Spoken Word artiste Sulibreaks; Twice on the Jive shows at Hush Lounge; and at Lexington at Lexington Live Poetry Bar.
“Attitude,” featuring JaySo, is MsBredd’s first original song, and she has also covered songs, such as “Complicated” (Wale) , “Lucid” (Pretty Wings), “Truth Ex Factor” (Lauryn Hill), “Questions” (Kanye West), and “Conversations” (Alicia Keys).
Believing in the beauty of words and being able to touch people’s lives through the power of experiences is something that is important to MsBredd, and she also thinks that everyone has a story to tell, and as such, enjoys reaching people through topics they can relate to.
Therefore, her spoken word pieces are often written mostly off of personal experience and issues that young people in her generation maybe going through.
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She looks up to Ghanaian poet Yom the Poet, who she says has an incredible delivery and is a great wordsmith, and the aforementioned SuliBreaks, who has been an inspiration on her journey so far.
In the coming years, she hopes to reach a lot more people internationally in whatever way she can and touch lives even in the smallest way possible.
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