HISTORY OF GHANAIAN POPULAR MUSIC FOR U.S .AFROPOP PUBLIC RADIO WEBSITE 2000
Fusion popular music developed in Ghana during the 19th and early 20 century from a fusion of three elements: the indigenous African, the European and the New World music of the black diaspora. As the imported influences first came to West Africa via European and American ships, early popular music styles grew up in the coastal areas, before moving island.
The earliest documented West African case of such a genre is Caribbean goombay played on frame-drums rather than traditional African hand-carved ones. This was a neo-African drum-dance associated with Jamaican myelism (a healing cult) brought to Freetown, Sierra Leone, by freed Jamaican maroon slaves in 1800. From Freetown local variants of goombay spread throughout West and Central Africa, reaching Ghana via the Congo (and later Fernando Po) from around 1900. In Ghana the Ga people of Accra called it gome and it subsequently influenced local highlife music, the simpa music of northern Ghana and the gahu neo-traditional drumming introduced into Ghana from the Benin Republic in 1950.
Although the term ‘highlife’ was not coined until the 1920’s it existed before then under various names and its creation occurred as a blending of local African and foreign music in three imported contexts: the coastal military-fort brass bands, the port music of seamen and fishermen, and the local dance orchestras of the Christian elite of coastal towns such as Accra, Cape Coast and Winneba. Let us take each of these in turn.
Early ‘Adaha’ brass-band highlife
Fife-and-drum and brass-bands were associated with the European military forts and by the mid 19th century a ‘native band’ had been set up at Cape Coast Castle in the southern Fanti area of Ghana to play western military marches and dance music; but not local songs. What catalysed the emergence of local ‘adaha’ brass-band music in the 1880’s was the arrival of Western Indian troops at Cape Coast Castle in the 1870s to help the British fight the inland Ashantis. In their spare time these Caribbean soldiers played their own syncopated Creole mentos and calypsos. Western trained Ghanaian soldiers followed suit, and from the 1880s set up the Lions Soldiers, Edu Magicians and other competing brass bands that played their own blend of syncopated march music that fused imported Caribbean and local rhythms. This became known as ‘adaha’, the earliest recognised form of highlife. Adaha bands subsequently spread like wildfire throughout southern Ghana, helped by money coming in from the cocao boom.
PHOTO OF MEMBERS OF AN EARLY GHANAIAN BRASS BAND AROUND 1897-9 (Basel Mission Archives )
Less well-off towns and villages who could not afford expensive imported brass band instruments made do with a poor-man’s version of adaha played on local percussion and voices called ‘konkoma’ (or ‘konkomba’). Popular from the 1930s it spread as far eastwards as Nigeria, and in the Volta Region of eastern Ghana it became indigenised during the 1950’s when it helped create the ‘borborbor’ recreational drum-dance style that is still popular amongst Ewe people today.
Today brass-bands have largely died out, except in the Agona Swedru areas ( near Cape Coast) where it is associated with masquerade parades, and in the Volta Region where it has become associated with the Catholic Church.
The coastal ‘palmwine’ music of the seaports
‘Palmwine’ music is a retrospective term that we use today to collectively describe the various early 20th century music styles that combined local instruments with the portable ones of visiting seamen: the concertina, banjo, harmonica and particularly the guitar. This was played at low-class dockside bars and local palmwine bars and included sub-genres such as the osibisaaba and annkadaamu of the local Fantis fishermen , Sierra Leonian asiko music popular all along the West African coast, and the dagomba, fireman (i.e ships stoker) and mainline styles of visiting Liberian Kru sailors and stevedores.
PHOTO OF VILLAGERS DANCING IN CIRCLE TO THE OSIBISAABA SOMEWHERE AROUND 1902 (Basel Mission Archives)
The maritime Kru’s had been working aboard European sailing ships from Napoleonic times and it was they who first developed the distinct West Africa two-finger plucking guitar technique, which they spread up and down the West African coast from World War One times via their Kru-town settlements. It was a Kru who, in the 1920’s, taught Ghana’s most famous pioneer highlife guitarist Kwame Asare (or Jacob Sam). It was this Fanti guitairst and his Kumasi Trio that made one of the first ever highlife recordings (including the famous Yaa Amponsah song) for Zonophone in London in 1928
When coastal palmwine music moved inland it incorporated the lyrics, rhythms and modulations of the traditional Akan seprewa harp-lute, creating the more rootsy odonson or Akan ‘blues’ style of palmwine music . During the 1930’s and 40’s guitar (and concertina) record of these ‘blues’ were being distributed in southern Ghana by HMV and Parlophone of palmwine artists such as Jacob Sam, Kwesi Pepera, Appianing, Kwame, Mireku, Osei Bonsu, Kwesi Menu, Kamkan and Appiah Adjekum. These group were all small consisting of no more than a guitarist or two plus a percussionist.
PHOTO OF THE KUMASI TRIO MADE UP OF THREE FANTIS INCLUDING JACOB SAM (ON RIGHT)
Black elite dance orchestras and the early concert party: the name ‘Highlife’
From the founding of the Accra Excelsior Orchestra in 1914 a number of large dance orchestras were established by educated Ghanaians that played European and Latin-American ballroom music and ragtime’s for the local black elite audience.
PHOTO OF SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE 1914 EXCELSIOR ORCHESTRA (TAKEN IN 1959)
Other similar prestigious groups were the Jazz Kings, Cape Coast Sugar Babies, Accra Orchestra, Winneba Orchestra and Sekondi Nanshamang. During the 1920’s orchestrated renditions of local melodies and street songs were added to their repertoires. It was those who stood outside the elite venues but were too poor to enter who called this orchestrated local music ‘highlife’, i.e. high-class life. This term subsequently become an umbrella one for all the early varieties of Ghanaian popular music, whether played by brass bands, palm wine guitar bands or dance orchestras and bands.
At the same classy shows where the top-hatted elite would dance to ballroom music they would also be entertained by silent movies and a ‘concert party’ a combination of ragtime, tap-dancing and minstrel vaudeville sketches performed in English.
PHOTO OF THE ACCRA BASED GA CONCERT PARTY ENTERTAINERS WILLIAMS AND MARBEL IN 1923
In 1930, the black face comedian Bob Johnson hi-jacked the concert party from the elite and took it to the hinterland, Consequently the first steps in the indigenisation of this local comic opera took place when Johnson’s Versatile Eight ( and later the Axim Trio) incorporated motifs from traditional Akan Ananse-the-Spider stories. They also performed partially in vernacular (i.e. Fanti) and used konkoma highlife for their pre-show publicity.
The Second World War and the postwar highlife dance band
The British utilised local popular music in the war effort. Konkoma highlife marching songs were used for recruiting drives and a West African Theatre was set up by seven Ghanaian service-men who were also concert party actors and konkoma musicians to entertain the African troops in Burma.
At the same time British and United States servicemen were stationed in Accra and an aircraft assembly plant was set up at Takoradi port. Indeed, if Britain had been defeated by the Germans, Ghana ( the then British Gold Coast) would have become one of the s bases for a British Government in exile – like De Gaulle and the Free French in Congo Brazzaville. These foreign soldiers in Ghana loved swing and jazz and together with Ghanaian dance orchestra musicians who could read music they set up the Black and White Spots and the Tempos swing bands to entertain the troops.
The Tempos survived the war and the departure of the foreign service-men, so it became an all-Ghanaian group which from 1948 under the leadership of E.T. Mensah began to concentrate more on local on highlifes; but with a strong swing, jazz and calypso touch. Infact the band’s line-up was basically that of a small swing combo. The Tempo’s drummer Kofi Ghanaba (then called Guy Warren) added Afro-Cuban percussion. The jazz influence increased when Louis Armstrong and his All Stars visited Ghana in 1956 and again in 1960.
PHOTO OF E.T.MENSAH (LEFT) AND OTHER GHANAIAN DANCE-BAND HIGHLIFE MUSICIANS WELCOMING LOUIS ARMSTRONG
AT ACCRA AIRPORT IN 1956
The ten-piece Tempos with its blend of the imported and indigenous became so successful that during the 1950’s and 60’s many dance bands modelled themselves on it: the Black Beats, Rhythm Aces, Red Spot, Ramblers, Broadway, Comets and Rakers of Ghana - as well as bands from Nigeria (which the Tempos often visited) run by Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya and Rex Lawson.
PHOTO OF THE HIGHLIFE BAND OF NIGERIAN BOBBY BENSON MODELLED ON THE GHANAIAN TEMPOS BAND OF E.T.MENSAH
Indeed, it would be true to say that the post-war highlife dance-bands with their then sophisticated line-up reflected the spirit (zeitgeist) of the early independence era, fort just as these bands successfully gave up-to-date western instrumentation an African content (i.e., highlife) so independence was ushering in a modern western type nation-state but run by Africans.
The guitar band and the concert party and the post-war nationalist movement
The war sped up the Ghanaian nationalist struggle, particularly after the 1948 anti-British demonstrations by returning Ghanaian war veterans. As a result independence was granted to the country by the British in 1957 under the leadership of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.
This nationalist upsurge affected the popular music. E.T. Mensah’s Tempos and other similar highlife dance-bands wrote independence songs and played at Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party rallies. When the members of the wartime West African Theatre returned home as the Burma Jokers concert party, in 1948 they renamed the Ghana Trio in line with rising nationalist sentiments. The Axim Trio and Bob Ansah’s concert parties wrote comic operas in favour of Nkrumah and infact Ansah was arrested on several occasions
Palm-wine music became influenced by the post-war dance-bands so that by the fifties they had expanded to include double bass, bongos and other imported percussion. They became known as ‘guitar bands’. Many of these guitar bands , like those of Kwaa Mensah and E.K. Nyame also wrote pro-independence songs, the latter accompanying Nkrumah on state visits.
When E.K. Nyame expanded his guitar band to include local drama by forming formed Akan Trio Concert Party in 1952 he completed the indigenisation process begun by Bob Johnson and the Axim Trio during the 1930’s . For E.K. Akan Trio’s plays were performed totally in the vernacular and included guitar band highlife music rather than the ragtime of earlier concert groups. As a result local highlife and local theatre became fused into the ‘comic highlife opera’ format of practically all succeeding guitar bands: Kakaiku’s, Yamoahs, the Jaguar Jokers, Bob Cole’s group, Onyina’s Royal Trio and Dr. Gyasi’s Noble Kings. These bands constantly toured or ‘trekked’ up and down Ghana bringing their plays and music to even the tiniest villages using batteries and portable generators
PHOTO OF JAGUAR JOKERS CONCERT PARTY ‘TREK’ BUS READY TO MAKE A CAMPAIGN IN A VILLAGE
In the late 1950’s the Nkrumah government began establishing state highlife bands and concert parties as part of its ‘African personality’ policy and this led to the first employment of actresses instead of the female impersonators of the earlier concert parties. In 1960 two trade union were set up, for the urban based highlife dance bands and the more provincial oriented guitar bands-cum-concert parties respectively. But as these were both affiliated to Nkrumah’s CPP they were dissolved after the anti-Nkrumah coup of 1966. It was after a gap of eight year before another union (MUSIGA) was formed.
During the 1960’s the guitar bands-cum-concert parties went electric and became so popular that there were seventy of these groups by the 1970’s. The big names since then have been the African Brothers, Okukuseku’s, F. Kenya, City Boys and Kumapim Royals. Some are still operating. By the 1980’s many concerts parties were also featuring on television ( like Osofo Dadzie and Obra) and during the nineties local video production drew heavily on concert party ideas and artists.
PHOTO OF NANA AMPADU LEADER OF THE AFRICAN BROTHERS BAND
The pop music and ‘Afro’ fashions of the 1960’s and 70’s
During the 1960’s there were two new outside influences on Ghanaian popular music. From other parts of Africa came ‘Congo jazz’ ( i.e. soukous) introduced live to Ghana by Ignace de Souza’s Black Santiago’s - and from South African came the ‘phatha phatha’ and township jazz through the records and visits of Miriam Makeba. Then from America and Europe came the rock ‘n’ roll and pop music of Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker and the Beatles, followed by the soul music of James Brown and others whose ‘Afro’ fashions and ‘black and proud’ message helped spark off a period of intense Ghanaian musical experimentation during the 1970’s.
The London based Ghanaian super-group Osibisa created its internationally acclaimed ‘Afro-rock’ out of highlife and rock. And this fusion style was continued in Ghana during the 1970’s by bands such as Hedzolleh ( that worked with South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela), the Psychedelic Aliens, Boombaya and Zonglo Biiz. In 1969 Nigeria’s Fela Ransome (Anikulapo)-Kuti created militant ‘Afrobeat’ taken up in Ghana by the Big Beats, Sawaaba Sounds and the ‘Afro-hili’ music of Nana Ampadu’s African Brothers.
PHOTO OF THE HEDZOLLEH AFRO-ROCK BAND IN 1973 WITH FAMOUS PERCUSSIONIST OKYEREMA ASANTE IN RAFFIA HAT
This musical ‘doing your own thing’ message was augmented by the 1971 Soul to Soul concert in Accra when the Latin and African-American artists Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Santana, Roberta Flack and the Staple Singer returned to their African roots.
This period of musical experimentation in Ghana also led to some ,musicians doing away with western instruments altogether - except for the guitar - and combining this with local ones. From the late 1960’s the Ashanti guitarist Koo Nimo became ‘unplugged’ and began to recreate the old acoustic ‘palmwine’ style. From 1973 in Accra there was a proliferation of rootsy ‘cultural groups’ that played the folk and popular songs of the Ga people, spearheaded by Wulomei whose leader, Nii Ashitey, had once been a dance band musician.
The economic decline of the late 1970’s and the 1980’s revolution
During the late 1970’s and early 80’s the Ghanaian music industry declined through the combination of the economic mis-management of the Acheampong regime, followed by a revolution, almost three years of night curfew, the 1983 drought and the sudden expulsion of a million or so Ghanaians from Nigeria. Record companies (Ambassadors and Polygram) folded up, many musicians left for overseas, band and concert parties could not obtain equipment and at one point there was only one recording studio operating in the country.
On the positive side the new Rawlings government of 1982recognised the new musicians union, MUSIGA, promulgated the 1985 Copyright Law and set up organisations to combat cassette piracy.
PHOTO OF THE MUSICIAN UNION (MUSIGA) PREPARING FOR THEIR 1979 MARCH FOR OFFICIAL RECOGNITION
PHOTO OF THE EXECUTIVE OF MUISIBA IN 1979; INCLUDES KWAA MENSAH, C.K.MANN, AMI JOHNSON, KING BRUCE, FAISAL HELWANI, OSEI TUTU, JOHN COLLINS, SIDIKU BUARI, KOO NIMO, BLAY AMBULLEY, JOE EYISON AND SAMMY ODOH
With the economic upsurge from the mid/late 1980’s many Ghanaian musicians returned home, many (mainly digital) recording studios opened and tourists began to come to the country in increasing numbers . The latter led to many private schools being established to teach tourists to play traditional and popular Ghanaian music. The first was AAMA at Kokrobite set up in 1988 by Master-drummer Mustapha Tettey Addy. Others followed such as AGORO at Cape Coast, Odehe at Nungua, Kasapaa at Ninyano and Godwin Agbele’s Dagbe Institute at Aflao.
In 1989, popular music was made an official part of the educational curriculum and in 1992 Ghana began to regularly host a bi-annual PANAFEST (the Pan African Festival) at Cape Coast that attracted foreign artists like Dionne Warwick, Rita Marley, Stevie, Wonder Isaac Hayes and Public Enemy. In 1993 a grand National Theatre was opened in Accra whose main attraction since 1995 has been weekend concert party shows - which are televised. In the late 1990’s the government allowed private FM radio stations and TV stations to begin operating.
To conclude I will turn to six specific popular music developments since the 1980’s. Namely Burgher highlife, Afro-reggae, gospel highlife, World Music, the live highlife revival and vernacular rap known as hip-lifehip.
1. Burgher Highlife
When the economy began to pick up in Ghana from the mid 1980’s the Ghanaian musicians who had gone abroad began returning home from bringing with them a new disco-highlife style created by George Darko’s and Lee Poumas’s Bus-stop band in the Hamburg Germany. This ‘burgher’ highlife uses drum machine and synthesizer horns and is much favoured by the Ghanaian youth who treat the older brands of highlife as ‘colo’, that is colonial or old-fashioned. Burgher highlife now includes vernacular renditions of rap, ragga and techno-pop by artists such as the Lumba Brothers and Nana Acheampong. The solo artist Daddy Lumba had an initially been on of the Lumba Brothers had an enormous hit in 1998 with his song Aben Wo Ha (it is cooked or ready) especially after one radio station banned it from the airwaves as they considered it to be sexually indecent .Unlike the philosophical and social commentaries of older highlife the burgher musicians dwell mainly on the topic romantic love. On television and even often on stage this music is not performed live but rather mimed or lip-synched to. Many of the older generation do not consider Burgher highlife to be highlife at all at all.
PHOTO DADDY LUMBA
2. Afro-Reggae
Reggae and Ska became popular in Ghana in the early 1970’s- and at first Ghanaian bands (like the Classic Handels and Vibes) began doing imitative cover versions of it. It was Ghanaian reggae artists such as Felix Bell and Roots Amaboo who introduced the rastafarian dread-lock hair fashion into Ghana . However, highlife-reggae also began to be produced by guitar bands such as the African Brothers, City Boys, Amakye Dede and K.K. Kabobo. The success of the mande and Baoule reggae of Cote d’ lvoires Alpha Blondy encouraged this vernacularisation process. Ghana’s most popular Afro-reggae artists of the 1990’s are Kwadwo Antwi (ex-Classic Vibes) who sings romantic reggae in Twi, Kente who toured the UK in 1997, Shasha Marley who always wears a monk’s cloak and hood and Rocky Dawuni from northern Ghana who since 1996 has released his albums ‘The Movement’ and Crusade’ and in early 2000 went on an American tour. Some Jamaican artists have also settled in Ghana including members of Zion’s Children and Rita Marley
PHOTO OF GHANA’S LATEST REGGAE SUPERSTAR ROCKY DAWUNI
3. Gospel Highlife
The economic decline of the 1970’s has in southern Ghana led to massive move towards Christianity, mostly of the African separatist kind. There are now over one thousand charismatic, apostolic, spiritual and pentacostal churches which, unlike western orthodox churches, allow dancing, possession and divination. At the same time the 1970’s slump pushed many secular dance musicians under church patronage whilst many of the churches began to use popular dance as part of their outreach programs. High taxes on the commercial music industry (huge import duties on musical instruments, entertainment tax, etc) and the fact that the churches are not taxed has helped this drift from secular to sacred music. As a result the churches combination of danceable highlife , imported pop church choral music now comprises about half the output and airplay of popular dance music in Ghana. There are even church recording studios and music unions. Whereas in the olden days its was almost impossible for a women to get on stage and maintain their respectability, local gospel has for the first time introduced large numbers of female artists to the Ghanaian popular music industry; such as the Tagoe Sisters, the Daughters of Glorious Jesus, Suzzy and Matt, Stella Dugan, Helena Rhabbles, Diana Akiwumi, Josephine Dzogzegbe, Mavis Sackey, Evelyn Boakye, Ester Nyamekye Ester Quartey, Juliet Antwi, Marian Anquandah, Amy Newman, Cyndy Thompson and a host of others .
PHOTO OF THE TAGOE SISTERS
PHOTO OF SUZZY AND MATT FROM THEIR LATEST GOSPEL RELEASE
4. The impact of ‘World Music’
In the early 1980’s there began an international interest in African popular music or ‘Afropop’, renamed’ World Music in 1987. African stars like Sunny Ade, Fela Kuti, Youssou Ndour, Salif Keita, Lucky Dube and Angelique Kidjo became globally recognised, whilst western superstars (Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Stuart Copland,etc) began to incorporate African elements into their music. Ghanaian musicians such as Nat Brew, Rex Omar (of NAKOREX), Sloopy Mike Gyamfi, Ben Brako and Afro-Moses have been strongly influenced by World Music.
Indeed, ex-Hedzolleh drummer Okyerema Asante shot to world fame through working with Mick Fleetwood and Paul Simon. Fleetwood had recorded in Ghana way back in 1980 and Paul Simon had a massive hit in 1987 with his South African influenced Graceland album and in 1990 used the Yaa Amponsah highlife melody for one of his tracks on the Rhythm of the Saints album.
Ironically, it is not the computerised, lip-synched ‘burgher’ highlife and hip-life that has crossed over from Ghana to the World Music market, but rather the older style of live highlife played by artists who rose to local fame in the 1970’s and early 80’s. These include Pat Thomas, A.B. Crentsil. Jewel Ackah, Eric Agyeman, Nana Tuffour and Gyedu Blay-Ambulley. Ambulley is incredibly active at the moment releasing a whole series of works on the market based on highlife, Afro-beat and his own Fanti version of rap that he has been doing for years
PHOTO OF BLAY AMBULLEY
5. Revival of old-time Highlife
These two NAKOREX founders then went solo with Nat Brew going on to release successful CD’s with the Megastar company such as Kpanlogo and Demara that draws heavily on Ga tradition whilst Rex Omar’s had a big hit with his risque highlife song Abiba Wadonkoto Ye Me Fe (Abiba’s Beautiful Movements Sweet Me). Another young musician who has stayed in the highlife vein is Felix Owusu who is also with Megastar
PHOTO OF NAT BREW
During the early 1990’s and due to popular outcry canned lip-synched music videos were discontinued on prime-time Saturday night television and replaced by live shows of the above groups and others. At the same time there were a number of cassette and CD releases of old evergreen highlife hits by King Bruce’s Black Beats, the Tempos, the African Brothers, the Kumasi Trio, Kakaiku, Yamoah, the Royal Brothers and K. Gyasi. Moreover many of the newly established FM radio station’s that were established from the mid 90’s have programs that specialise in ‘classic’ highlifes. Organisations to preserve highlife have been set up since 1990 include the Gramophone Museum at Cape Coast, the Bokoor African popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF) at Ofankor, Accra, Professor Nketia’s International Centre for African Music and Dance (ICAMD) at the University of Ghana, Legon and Kofi Ghanaba’s African Heritage Library at Samsan.
6) The current hip-life explosion
Towards the end of the 1990’s local rap in the Twi and Ga languages became the rage with the youth and the name hip-life (i.e. hip-hop highlife) was coined by Reggae Rockstone after he shot to fame with his Tsoo Boi release. Hip Life bands or rather solo artists who use computerised and sampled backing tracks have proliferated since then and includes names like Nana King, Daasebre, Lord Kenya, Akatakyie, Tic Tac, Ex Doe, Chicago. Lifeline Family, Buk Bak, DC All Stars, Nana Quame and the Native Funk Lords (NFL),. Nana King is a Ghanaian born in the United States who has made an impact on the local rap scene since he came back in 1998 and released Champion that raps over a loop from Fela Kuti’s famous Afrobeat song Lady. The Native Funk Lords perform in Pidgin /English and unlike the other hip-life groups use some live instrumentation. Tic Tac’s rap song Philomena Kpitenge caused a controversy as it mentions a rash that can effect the genitals. Ex Doe and Chicago are causing a newspaper controversy in Ghana for introducing offensive, sexually explicit and misogynist themes of the African-American ‘gangsta-rap’ variety.
PHOTO OF NANA KING
Like the earlier computerised Burgher highlife its equally if not more computerised hip-life extension is very much an internal Ghanaian youth fashion. Indeed to distance themselves from the live highlife of the older generation the more artificial the sound the better. Indeed, most hip-life stars prefer to mime or lip synch at public performances rather than sing live over a pre-programmed backing track. On the positive side the vernacular lyrics of hip-life are giving a voice to the young and as it is so easy to chant over a pre-programmed (and usually imported beat) anyone can have a go at becoming a musical star. On the negative side burgher highlife and hip-life recordings using computerised drums and synthesisers are putting Ghanaian drummers and horns-men out of work and of as yet not one single burgher highlife or hip-life has crossed-over into the lucrative World Music market whose African component is now estimated to be 1.5 billion dollars a year. World Music fans are simply not interested in over-computerised Ghanaian techno-pop. Nevertheless, hip-life as poetry has became the voice of the new generation and is a major component of Ghana’s estimated 25 million dollar internal music industry sales, the other major component being gospel-highlife that is now dominated by female singers
We now have a strange situation in the Ghanaian popular dance-music scene where the young men prefer to chant or rap in the local languages over imported hip-hop beats whereas it is the young women who are still really singing and creating beautiful melodies in a highlife vein, but doing so in sacred terms. The situation is remarkably similar to that of the United States in the 1950’s when a whole generation of African-American women singers had been trained in black ‘hot’ gospel choirs. As everyone-one knows, when they came out of the churches into the commercial sector from the 1960’s they provided a major component for the soul, doo-wop and motown music that became the foundation of much of today’s international disco, funk, hip-hop and R&B. In the future it could be that Ghana will produce its own equivalent of America’s church-trained Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone or Diana Ross – and who will cross-over into the commercial sector and make a global impact.
