Rie Osei Wet the Wick, and it still caught fire!
An article by Kojo Bonsamposuro
On 21st September, Rie Osei dropped tell_a_friend.Mp3, a love letter to creativity. It opened with a voice recording of her manager expressing how much he believed in her, and spent the rest of its runtime reminding every creative that nobody does what they do the way they do it. Then, on Monday, 2nd November, she followed it with an actual love letter.
If you’re new to her, Rie Osei, born Marie-Ann Osei-Sampah, has spent her career blurring the line between alternative R&B and the African soundscapes she grew up moving between. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Rie spent most of her childhood moving between that environment and her roots in Ghana, splitting her childhood between Chicago and West Legon, Accra, before deciding to move to Ghana to pursue music in 2022. Just one year later, in 2023, she was back home in Chicago’s Washington Park performing at GhanaFest, sharing the lineup with big names like Sarkodie. Rie started writing her own songs at six years old, and that early instinct for melody now shows up fused with Amapiano, Afrohouse, and Afrobeats, and honestly, there are very few artists in our beloved Ghana as committed to experimentation and exploring alternative soundscapes as she is.
Wet the Wick is a 2-pack, and the pairing is the whole idea. It puts Honest next to Simon Says, which first dropped on 19th June and next to Honest, Simon Says makes so much more sense now. The cover is a black-and-white portrait caught mid-motion, hair swinging and face blurred, like the photographer only just got the shot. The title comes from a line in Honest, and the image behind it is a good one. You wet a wick so it can’t catch fire. Put the spark out before it turns into something. And yet, both songs spend their runtime deliberately doing the exact opposite.
Honest reads like the letter itself, addressed to one person. She opens by brushing off all the guys flooding her phone, none of whom she actually wants. She needs someone who can keep up with her, and she’s clear that she won’t waste anyone’s time or play with their head. Then it turns inward. She admits she’s been a mess and that she’s been wasting time, and for a moment it sounds like she’s talking herself into letting it go. By the hook she has decided to tell him the truth instead: it’s only him. She asks him to wait on her and promises there would never be anyone else. The line that gives the pack its name comes in the second half. She was guarded because she thought she was protecting him, she felt a spark and snuffed it out so she wouldn’t set him off, and now it’s getting harder to hold back.
Simon Says is the one that gains the most from the new company. On its own, the swagger is easy to take at face value. She’s running the game, giving the orders, everybody follows, and she wants to hear exactly how fine she is. Next to Honest, you hear what the swagger is covering. She admits she says things she doesn’t mean, because the moment something is said out loud, she has opened the gate for someone to let her down. By the end the commands have turned into questions. She’s asking whether any of it is real, whether it’s something she can keep, and she’s begging not to be told it was only ever casual. That is the same confession as Honest dressed up as bravado, and it makes so much more sense now that the two sit side by side.
That is the thread I’d pull through her last two drops. tell_a_friend.Mp3 was a love letter to her craft, and it was all affirmation: nobody does it like you, so keep going. Wet the Wick is the letter addressed to a person, and the confidence gets shakier. She knows exactly who she is as an artist. She has no idea whether this other thing is real.
Six weeks apart, one love letter to the work and one to a mysterious figure. A wet wick is supposed to end the story, and she can’t quite make it one. If art is simply bringing the vision in your head to life as accurately as possible, Rie paints an incredible picture. She’s an amazing artist that should be on everybody’s radar, and I’m already curious who gets the next letter.