GHANAIAN POPULAR  PERFORMANCE AND THE URBANISATION PROCESS:  1900-1980.

By John Collins , Music Dept, University of Ghana, Legon  July 2004

 

 

Paper read at  the Ghana Historical Society annual conference, 15 July 2004, Accra.  Published in  Transactions: Journal  of the Historical Society of Ghana,New Series, No. 8, 2004, pp. 203-226.

 

 

            The importance of trans-cultural (syncretistic) popular performance [1]  in the urbanisation process has been noted by many Africanist writers.  One of the earliest was Clyde Mitchell [2]  of the `Manchester School' [3]  who considered the kalela dance of the 1930's and 40's East African Copperbelt to be not only a mock copy or `pantomime' of European brass-bands, but also of European social structures as well.  For Mitchell the organisation of these dance clubs helped create the group boundaries and `categorical relationships' pertinent to the new towns and work-camps.

            In similar vein Coplan [4],  from his more recent work in South Africa and influenced by the `Manchester School' and its interest in pluralistic urban fields, sees urban popular entertainment there as a metaphor for the social dynamics of the new urban-industrial structures

            Ranger [5]  believes that brass-band derived East African Beni music both symbolically `mirrors' power divisions amongst modernising Africans and acts as a useful `decoder' for social historians studying African social change.  Likewise, Waterman's [6]  studies of Nigerian popular music lead him to conclude that it is both urban oriented and acts as a `map' for urban identities in cities such as Lagos.

            This idea that popular entertainment provides a metaphorical map or mirror of urban society is also taken up by Barber [7]  who believes it not only reflects, but also articulates attitudes. A viewpoint shared by Fabian and Fabian-Szombati [8]  who see Congolese (ex-Zaire) popular painting as a way contemporary Africans consciously communicate, rather than merely  echo socio-economic structures.

            Jeyifo calls the Yoruba travelling theatre a `secular rite' [9] and insofar as rituals symbolically `recreate categories through which man perceives reality'  this Nigerian popular drama can be said to articulate processes connected with urbanisation.  This is similar to what Peacock [10]  calls the `rites of modernisation' provided by the `ludruk' popular theatre of Indonesia.  Like West African popular theatre, this urban (and proletarian) Javenese theatre dramatises modern life against a traditional village background and introduces its audiences to western notions of bureaucratisation, monetisation and nuclear family relationships.

            To look at the relevance of African popular entertainment to urbanisation in detail this paper will  focus on Ghana (with some references to other Anglophone West African countries) and will examine the subject under five headings : A) popular performance's connection with urban migration:  B) its role in urban socialization: C)  its presentations of tensions within the traditional extended family system: D) its function as an contemporary urban  lingua franca:  E) its reflections  on the inequalities of wealth within the modern socio-economic system .

 

 

 

 

 

 

A.     THE LURE OF THE CITY

            Urban migration or the `lure of the city' as Kenneth Little [11] calls it, is a result of the financial, educational and cultural gains that Africans were able to make in the cities and industrial centres that were established in colonial times. This migration led to the growth of population centres,  and in Ghana, Accra doubled in size to thirty-eight thousand between 1911 and 1921 and reached  two-hundred thousand  by the 1940’s,  by which time  Kumasi, reflecting the interwar cocoa boom, grew to seventy thousand .[12]

            Popular entertainment is relevant to the `lure of the city' in two important ways. Firstly, many genres have been created by and catered for new urban migrants.  Secondly, the actual performances of itinerant African groups, such as concert parties, introduce modern ideas and fashions to the villages and therefore act as an agent of `urban pull'.   

            In Anglophone West Africa the migrant factor included the drum and accordion groups of the Tarrancis and Yankadde voluntary associations of the Mandinke and Temne newcomers in Freetown [13], and the guitar groups of seafaring migrants, such as the Krus of Liberia who had `Krutown' settlements in many West African coastal towns. Waterman [14]  also comments on the contribution of rural migrants to the palmwine music of interwar Lagos, when over half the city's population was composed of such newcomers.

            After the Second World War there was a multiplication of syncretic popular entertainment genres.  Waterman [15] claims that the proliferation of Nigerian juju-music  styles from the late 1940's was partly a result of the increased urban migration that occurred then.  The increase in the number of Ghanaian concert parties from a handful in the 1930's to twenty-eight by 1960 can also be partially explained in terms of the post-war expansion of cities.  By that year the populations of Accra and Kumasi was six-hundred-and-forty and two-hundred-and sixty thousand respectively, twenty-three percent of the country's population lived in urban communities,  of which a quarter of the population was migrant (half from Ghana and half from neighbouring countries) [16].  It was these first generation urbanites, consisting largely of newly arrived village folk, who comprised a large component of the concert party (local popular theatre) and associated guitar band audiences  and performers.

            In examining the active role of the Ghanaian concert party in ‘urban pull’ it should first be noted that there was a  dramatic increase in the number of jobs that were created after the Second  World War [17] and particularly after independence; rising to a quarter of a million by 1960 [18]  Another was the six-fold increase in the number of schools between 1950 and 1964 [19] abetted by the fact the positive correlation between the level of schooling and  the pre-disposition to live in urban areas: as people with education tend to move to the cities in search of new job opportunities.[20]

            The plays and songs of the itinerant concert parties were also an urban enticement, introducing news, novel ideas, and the attractions of city life to even the remotest areas of Ghana. This policy of taking concert performances to the rural areas goes back to the Two Bobs and Axim Trio groups of the 1930's when  there was practically no rural cinema and no radio coverage for the provincial areas, so plays like the Axim Trio's 1936  `The Coronation of King George VI', with its depiction of archbishops and admirals, must have been a vivid source of western imagery [21].  With the proliferation of the number of concert parties in the late 1940's to 1970’s their innovative impact increased.  These  performing groups and bands introduced western social norms; and  an example is an early 1950's song by E.K. Nyame's Akan Trio called `Se Wo Chi Anny E Ye San Bra'. In this highlife the singer implores a departed lover to return if things do not work, so that they can kiss and make-up.  Kissing on the mouth was traditionally unknown to the Akan and was a custom connected with the ideals of romantic love introduced by Europeans. Likewise the comic plays  (or rather highlife operas)  of the Jaguar Jokers concert party  introduced city mores and fashions to the hundreds of villages and provincial towns  that performed at between the 1950s and 70’s.[22]

            Infact, the very term `Jaguar' is itself relevant to urban pull, for this name, given to the band in 1954 by its leader (and main comic ‘Opia’),  Mr. Bampoe, was taken from the then current quintessence of the modern imported urban dream of the fifties: the sleek, expensive and stylish Jaguar car from Britain.  Mr. Bampoe told me that to be jaguar `meant to be fine or modern..... of high class' and the name was often used in this way at the time. Iain Lang [23] mentions a highlife that includes the word  `jagwah',  probably referring to a recording  hit of the times sung in English and Ga by the Hotshots dance-band [24].  The Ghana Film Industry summarised this sentiment in the description of its short highlife ballet `Jaguar' made in 1958 that  says `unless you own a fridge, are a been-to, have been to England that is - and own a flash car like a Jaguar, the girls won't love you' [25].  An example that comes from Nigeria is  `Jaguar Nana', the title of Cyprian Ekwensie's fifties book about an adventurous `goodtime' girl in a big city. [26]

 

                           B.  POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT AND URBAN SOCIALISATION

            Popular performing groups are important for African urban socialization and there are three key ways they contribute to this. Firstly, their shows function as a cathartic tension reducing medium; secondly, the plays and song texts provide positive and negative guidelines for behaviour; and thirdly these texts warn their audiences of the dangers of urban life.  Each will be dismissed in turn.

 

1. Urban Catharsis

            Various writers have commented on the fact that popular performing arts provide an emotional outlet for the strains arising from rapid modernisation and urbanisation.   Johnson [27] comments on the `therapeutic' nature of Yoruba travelling theatre, which Jeyifo [28] believes helps in the `painless resolution' of the sour experience and reversals of life.  Ricard [29] says that the Togolese concert party `fills an emotional vacuum' for the newly urbanised, whilst Bame [30] claims the Ghanaian variety is a social tranquillizer that integrates anti-social behaviour.  West African popular music and drama therefore, like many other forms of performance, provide a cathartic or `purging' release for its audience in the classical Aristotelian sense.

            One way this purging takes place is through members of the audience weeping and I noticed this on several occasions when I toured with the Jaguar Jokers as a musician between 1969 and 1973.  A similar observation was made by Bame from a survey of concert audiences he made in the 1960's. [31]

            Laughter is another form of cathartic release and it can help deflate the antagonisms the audience feels towards others.  For instance, the audiences of the  Jaguar Jokers  became hilarious over the foolish antics of ‘illiterate’ policemen, opinionated school-teachers and the  rather pompous ‘gentleman’ character who, in spite of his uplifting moral sermons, is full of indiscretions, such as ogling other men's wives.  Barber [32]  notes a similar ambiguity of the aladura (African Christian) priest of a Yoruba popular play [33]   who, though being a moraliser and representative of authority,  is also farcical, corrupt and preposterously proud.

            Hostility towards other ethnic groups or nationalities can also be deflected or displaced by the humorous exaggeration and stereotyping of their mannerisms.  The Jaguar Jokers depiction of the Nigerian, Saka, who is frightened of being executed in a traditional Akan rite in the 1954 play `Kashelee', is a case in point.  Indeed, the very name `Kashelee' is Opia's witty way of saying in Twi `kyere no' (tell or warn him or her) with a thick Lagotian accent.  Another Jaguar Jokers example is the  fun its Akan comics make of  Ga women who sell their local dish called ‘kenkey’.  Sutherland [34] gives an early example of this ethnic stereotyping in the 1930's `Minnie the Moocher' play of the Two Bobs concert party. In this, the two `Bobs' (Bob Johnson and Bob Ansah) dress up to look like typical Liberian 'Kroo Boy' stevedores and carry oversize spoons to eat rice from oversize bowls: for the two comics and their audience are familiar with jokes about the Kru peoples `passionate love of rice.'

 

2. A Guide To Behaviour

            Popular arts can supply codes of behaviour, and researchers into Ghanaian and Nigerian popular theatre have observed that their contents have a social control function by dramatising both the positive and negative consequences of various types of conduct.  Bame [35] states that the Ghanaian variety dramatizes the immoral through ridicule and exaggeration, whilst Johnson [36]  comments on the didactic nature of Yoruba travelling theatre; which Barber [37] believes helps `instill popular values... concerning progress and identity.'  In both the Nigerian and Ghanaian genres, the formative church cantata bible-play influence may be a factor in their moralising stance.

            For the Ghanaian concert party the do's and don'ts of urban living are spelt out by the altruistic, hardworking and humble characters, contrasted with the lazy, greedy and downright evil ones.  Then there is the moral of the story that closes many concert plays by their ‘gentleman’ character   Mr. Bampoe is quite clear about the positive role of his plays, which he designs to encourage the young to stop `roaming around' town and instead help their parents.  This point is also made by Bame [38],  who believes concert plays help reinforce kinship ties that tend to be weakened in the modern urban context: a topic that will be returned to later.  Bame also provides evidence that concert audiences believe that the moral messages of the plays are beneficial for them and help them in their daily lives.[39]

            Many of the highlife songs of the concert party guitar-bands also contain moral and didactic advice.[40]   Some examples from the 1950's are E.K. Nyame's recording `Boa Wo Nye Nko Onipa' that advises one to help ones neighbour, and Kwese Peperah's `E Sono Sika' (Twi for `Family Money') which is a funeral songs that declares good character is more important than money. [41]  Rather than extolling  positive virtues, E.K. Nyame's `Obi Neye N'Ade A Gyae No' warns listeners not to meddle in other people's affairs, whilst `Wo Ye Me A Meye Wo' advises his fans not to abuse peoples unless they want to be insulted back. [42]

            Not only the highlifes of the guitar bands but also those of the dance bands that were so popular during the 1950's and 60's contained moral messages.  Examples of negative sanctions are the numerous songs that condemn gossip:  such as the Rhythm Aces `Konkonsa' (Twi for `gossip') and `Adesa Beka' (Fanti for `people will talk') [43].  Other dance band highlifes songs sometimes affirmed noble sentiments and two by King Bruce's Black Beats band are `Obra Bo' (Ga for `life-style') that declares honesty is what matters in life, and `Mena Wom' (Fanti for `my mother brought me forth') that says one should respect one's mother. [44]

 

3. Urban Danger

            The third socialising function of popular entertainment is warnings to rustic audiences of urban danger. Barber [45] notes that Nigerian (and Kenyan) popular literature deal with the `horrors' of the city, whilst   Waterman[46] states that one of the subject matters of interwar Yoruba palmwine was marital conflict, economic uncertainty, the duplicity of prostitutes and city women and the other stresses faced by male wage migrants

            Prostitution is also a problem in Ghanaian towns, which Twumasi points out is a result of the high ratio of male to female migrants in the urban areas [47].  Not surprisingly ‘goodtime girls’, ‘hightime girls’ and ‘ashawos’  (prostitutes) often in concert party plays and   Bame [48]   provides examples of this . ‘Goodtime girls’ are also found in most of the plays of the Jaguar Jokers, the  male equivalent being  the flashy and crooked urban dandy ( eg. Tommy Fire)  who lures village or school children to town and spoil them.

            A play that contains both the `goodtime girl' and `playboy' stereotype is the 1959 production of Kwaa Mensah's concert party called `If You Bamboozle Somebody They Will Bamboozle You' [49].  Here a spendthrift taxi-driver chases the guitar playing and money loving lady Owurama, but looses his wife in the process. The ‘gentleman’  in top-hat moralises at the end of the play by telling his audience `if your wife is an old lady or farmer, don't go and take the one with lipstick, otherwise you will fall.'

            Drink is another danger facing migrants moving to strange towns, and drunkards abound in the plays of the concert parties.   Highlife recordings may also condemn drinking, and two well known examples are A.B. Crentsil's `Akpeteshie Seller' released in the 1980's, and the 1972 record of Okukuseku's Number Two Band called `Robert Mensah,' about the stabbing to death of a famous Ghanaian footballer in an akpeteshie (local liquor) bar.  Some songs, however, try to explain the reasons for drunkenness. An example of this is the record `Osigyani' (Twi for a `bachelor'), released by Yamoah's  guitar band in the 1950's [50].  In this highlife the singer says he has turned to drink because he has no girlfriend or wife: a common situation for a poor male migrant in town.

            Sometimes it is not the unpleasant side of urban life that is bemoaned in popular texts, but the very fact of migration itself; as in the case of the African Brothers `Obiba Broke' (Twi for `someone's child who is broke') record of 1972 [51]  about the social forces that compel young people to migrate from home.  An earlier example is the 1959 highlife song by the Modernaires dance-band called `Akwankwaa Hiani' that concerns a `poorman' who is forced to travel and leave his family - but faces worse problems in his new home than the ones he left behind.[52]

            A final Ghanaian example that graphically depicts the danger and what Brempong [53] calls the `chaotic' conditions of urban life is the Koforidua Casino Orchestra's highlife song `Looting Awamwoo.'  It was written in 1948, just after the looting of European shops following the anti-British demonstration in Accra that year in which three Ghanaian ex-servicemen were killed.  J.K. Addo, the leader of the orchestra and composer of the song, told me in 1973 that it was about the people who went to buy things at big department stores and got maimed, so he wanted to advise his fans not to go and buy anything from European shops again.

 

 

                          C.  THE BREAK-UP OF THE TRADITIONAL EXTENDED FAMILY

            Popular entertainment is relevant to the tensions and strains within the Ghanaian traditional kinship system, resulting from the break-up of the extended family into the smaller western nuclear type, which is particularly prevalent in the urban context.

            In southern Ghana[54] traditional kinship is based on a clan sub-unit called the extended family, marriage is polygamous and, amongst most of the Akan speaking peoples, descent is reckoned matrilineally .[55]  There are several reasons why this pattern has been eroded in the urban context.  One is the adoption of European norms. These include the monogamous conjugal ideal of a husband and one wife, the patrilineal practice of inheritance and the emergence of the `filiocentric' family’ [56]; that is families where the children are central and due to family planning are few in number.  Another western norm is that marriage should be based on the romantic love between two individuals, rather than being a `bond between two families' [57], as is the typical traditional Ghanaian practice.  Economic factors have also weakened kinship solidarity. Men have to migrate away from home to work and cash payments to individuals have replaced unpaid communal family labour.  The cash nexus has also exacerbated the inheritance disputes already complicated by the introduction of the imported patrilineal system.  Formal education has also affected traditional familial patterns as it  has led to the postponement of the age of marriage, so enhancing the modern tendency towards smaller families and  contributing to the decline in the respect for parental authority, polygamy and other traditional customs.

            Taking the above factors into account, four specific areas of familial tension expressed in the plots and lyrics of Ghanaian popular entertainment will be examined.  These are 1) the hostile attitude to polygamy found in these popular texts; 2) their sympathetic depiction of the plight of the orphan the neglected child; 3) their concern with inheritance disputes; 4) their portrayal of family tensions in terms of witchcraft accusations.

 

1. The Anti Polygyny Stance of Concert Party Texts

            Various writers [58] on Ghana have noted the trend towards the monogamous conjugal family  . This is reflected in concert party plays dealing with polygyny in a negative light, particularly the topic of co-wife jealousy and the ill-treatment of stepchildren by their stepmothers.

            The attempts of co-wives attempting to poison one another is found in several of the Jaguar Jokers  plays (eg. `Ye Atomfo Okyena' and  'Ebe Ye Dwe').  Bame [59]  refers to an identical plot in a concert play he has translated called `The Jealous Rival'

            Another example is E.K. Nyame's play `Wo Sum Brodea Sum Kwadu' [60],  which  literally means `If you push Plantain you have to push Banana' and is very much like the English saying `what is good for the goose is good for the gander': in this context  an appeal to co-wives to treat all the husband's children equally.  A popular 1970’s  highlife song  of K. Gyasi called `Meko Ma Obi Aba' warns husbands of the dangers of having more than one wife [61].

 

2. Orphans and Neglected Children

            The plight of orphans and foster children is a very common topic of concert party plays and highlife songs. A typical example is the Jaguar Jokers `Awisia Yi Wo Ani' which, Mr. Bampoe told me, is about greediness, `as the orphan will share some of the father's wealth, so the stepmother wants to kill the child.' The problems of the neglected child occurs either  in the context of a polygynous household, as in E.K. Nyame's play mentioned above, or as the result of the death of a parent or parents, which is the case in `Awisia Yi Wo Ani'.

 

 Bame [62]  mentions two plays on the orphan theme.  One is Ahamono's play about an orphan and evil aunt called `Wu A Na Family Ties'  and the other is a Cinderella-like play by Kakaiku's group called `Wo Yonko Ba Se Wo Ba' (Treat Somebody's Child as Your Own).  The rejected child is also an important subject matter for the Happy Stars of Lomé concert party, with its President, Pascal D'Almeida, usually taking the role of the evil stepmother.  Indeed the orphan is the hero of the group's most famous play `Agbenoxev'. [63]. 

            The topic of the orphan is prevalent in the lyrics of highlifes of all types.  `Mere Wo Beko Asamen'  by E.K. Nyame's guitar band is about an orphan who wants to join his dead parents in `ghostland' [64],  whilst `Egyanka Ba'  by Kakaiku's band is about a `fatherless child'.  Bame, van der Geest and Yankah mention [65]  more recent examples of Twi guitar-band highlifes on this subject.  The Silver Stars and other konkoma groups [66]   of the 1940's also played songs about orphans: as did highlife dance bands. [67]

            One reason for the common theme of the neglected child in contemporary popular texts is, as already mentioned, the stresses and strains in the polygynous system.  In the modern environment these have intensified due to the customary seniority arrangements between co-wives breaking down, resulting in rivalry between them over the allowance and inheritances that go to them and their respective children.  Another schismatic pressure on the modern Ghanaian family comes from the high incidence of migration which is helping contribute to separation, divorce and broken homes and the consequent fostering of children.  Whilst traditional fostering was of a voluntary kind and a technique for training children and preventing them from being spoilt by over-fond parents, Ester Goody [68]  points out that the modern type is `crisis fostering'; where the parents remarry and the child is open to maltreatment by the new parent or guardian.

            Quite a different reason for the recurrent theme of the lost or orphaned child in popular entertainment may be that the child without parents, particularly the mother in the case of the matrilineal Akan, is a person without a family.  This in traditional societies based on strong kinship ties is the quintessential disaster that can befall a human being.  Indeed, in the old days to be exiled from one's family and particularly one's clan meant death.  The orphan state lamented in songs and plays may therefore be a graphic way of describing the acute loneliness, rootlessness and loss of primary social relations encountered by many newcomers to the big city, but couched in traditional symbolism.  In short, a poetic way of expressing urban anomie.

 

3. The Matrilineal Puzzle

            A family problem that sometimes crops up in concert plays and highlifes songs is that arising from the clash between the traditional Akan matrilineal system of inheritance and the imported patrilineal European one.  Bame [69] provides one that does. It is  called `So Is The World'  by Kojo Brakes concert group in which the farmer (played by Kojo Brake)  is hounded for money by his sister and her son Kwaku Sharp.  Brake refuses to give them anything as they never helped him or his wife with the farm, so the greedy nephew, Kwaku, attempts to kill his uncle with `juju'. When this backfires Kwaku goes mad.  The play highlights the reluctance of some Akan men to allow their wealth to pass to their matrikin and, although this is not openly stated in the play, the implication is that Brake wants his wealth to go to his wife and children.

            A  similar theme is found in a highlife song by Koo Nimo called `Nkrabea Nni Kwatibea' (Fate Is Just) [70] about the downfall and death of a lazy and avaricious nephew who cannot just wait to inherit from his maternal uncle, a rich cocoa farmer. When his old uncle becomes sick the nephew begins celebrating by drinking and gambling.  He buys a coffin to bury his uncle - but ends up in it himself.

            This conflict of interests between a man wanting his property to go to his direct heirs rather than his lateral matrikin, anthropologists call the `matrilineal puzzle'.  It was solved traditionally amongst the Akans by a system known as `cross-cousin marriage': a customary arrangement within the extended family for a man's son to marry his sister's daughter.  Although this does not allow the man to pass on his assets to his son, it does enable him to pass them on, via the matrikin, to his grandchildren and therefore still end up in the hands of his direct descendants.  In the modern situation, this complex mediating mechanism of juggling genealogies by extended families has been largely discontinued, leaving a head-on clash between a man's obligations to his matrikin and his inclination to inherit his direct descendants.  Moreover, this inclination had become stronger with the introduction of the European and Christian patrilineal system; which explains why in the play and song just mentioned, the matrikin is depicted negatively [71].

 

            4. Witchcraft Accusations Within The Family

            The real ugliness of the fragmentation of the extended family system is made apparent in witchcraft accusations, which help tear apart kinship ties that span centuries and is a contemporary social pathology related to the relatively sudden emergence (as compared to Europe) of the nuclear family.  It is dramatised by concert plays and highlife songs that dwell on the use of evil spells, ‘juju’  and poisons by family members, such as the previously discussed concert performances involving  jealous co-wives and greedy nephews.

            The Jaguar Jokers `Onipa Hia Mmoa' provides another  example, for in this play the drunkard blames his sorry state on his mother for putting evil medicine in the form of  a `grawa' (large water-can) in his stomach.[72]  Later in this play Opia gives a long soliloquy on witchcraft in the family being the cause of barrenness, of debt, of young women running away from home and of his friend having to have his leg amputated.

 

            Examples of guitar band highlife songs of the fifties on this theme of hatred in the family include `Wa Ye Me Pasa' (Someone Has Destroyed Me Completely) and `Enye Me Nkrabea' (It's Not My Fate) by Otoo Larte's guitar band  [73].  Another is `Yen Panyin Asa'   (The Sayings Of the Elders) by Kwesi Peprah's band. In all these the singer is complaining of family hatred towards him, with the added ironical comment in the last song that when a person dies it is the family members who most wanted his downfall who will praise him the most.  An example from the seventies is the African Brother's song `Yaw Asante', which warns Yaw that the family he is marrying into is full of witches and maliciousness. [74]

            Brempong [75] provides the texts of many highlife songs about witchcraft in the family [76], and the reason why this gloomy topic is so common in the largely Akan concert party and guitar-band genres is that, traditionally amongst the Akans, witches were though to inflict their evil specifically on members of their own family or `abusua' (matrikin).  The witches or `obayifo' in fact represent ego-centric factors  within the communal kinship structure that are projected onto particular individual men or women. The increased individualistic ethos resulting from the modern urban and cash-crop environment  are therefore creating more  tensions within the traditional extended family that are simply being expressed in a customary way: as witchcraft accusations .

 

 

                         D.  POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT AS AN URBAN LINGUA FRANCA

            Various writers on West Africa have noted that syncretic popular entertainment acts as a lingua franca in the polyglot urban African centres.  Barber [77] sees popular arts as transcending geographical, ethnic and national boundaries, and Waterman [78] believes these are performances equivalent to the super-ethnic `pidgin' languages.  Indeed `pidgin' or `broken' English is actually used in maringa, highlife, Afro-beat and some other popular entertainment forms.  Nketia [79] considers highlife to be an `inter-tribal' idiom. In a similar vein, Ware [80] claims that not only is there a `lack of tribalism' in the popular music of Sierra Leone, but it rather fosters a `pan-African musical culture that celebrates the African idiom.'

                        Here let us turn specifically to popular theatre, which not only provides a lingua franca for Africans in the urban and cash-crop context through music, but also through the various stage characters portrayed.  The Ghanaian genre presents a cross-section of the country's population, from illiterate farmers, traditional chiefs and `fetish' priests, to urban doctors, lawyers and teachers in European clothes and speaking English. Then there is the crafty servant or house-boy and the self-important ‘bigman’ just returned from Europe.  Also contrasted to the rural `bushman' are the smart young urbane. ‘playboys’ and ‘hightime girls’  who dress in the latest fashion and frequent drinking bars

            Another important concert party character is the `gentleman' who is industrious, speaks good English, is usually well-to-do or acquires wealth during the course of the play, and supplies the story's closing moral.  In short, he projects a personality that the audience is expected to listen to, if not emulate.

            Different ethnic groups are also depicted on stage,and some already referred to include the northern policeman speaking a mixture of Twi, Hausa and `broken' English, Lagotians speaking with thick Yoruba accents, kenkey eating Ga people and the rice loving Krus of Liberia.  Another example is the famous pioneering highlife guitarist Jacob Sam (Kwame Asare) who in the late 1930's joined the Axim Trio and then formed his own concert group called `Sam and his Party'. In both of these he usually appeared in drag, often as a Sierra Leone Women.[81]  The Ewe concert party the Happy Stars of Lomé has a severe Yoruba policeman character called `Nago' and their Ghanaian member, Simon de Fanti, who began his acting career with the Happy Stars concert party of Ghana, [82] performs the companies Akan characters.

 

 

E: COMMENTS ON AND EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INEQUALITIES OF WEALTH

 WITHIN THE MODERN CASH  NEXUS

Ghanaian popular performance is also relevant to urbanization  as their lyrics and plays often  dwell on money matters and the tensions  arising from the modern laissez-faire economy.

            Lack of money and the consoling of the poor is a common theme in the plays of Ghanaian and Nigerian [83] popular theatre.  Examples from concert party highlife guitar bands of the  1950’s include  Otoo Larte's `Ahoofe Ene Sika' (With Money You Can Obtain Anything) and `One Pound No Balance' which complains about inflation [84]. Songs by other concert bands of the period are Kakaiku's `Darling Money No Dey'   and Kwaa Mensah's `Maaye Apensa' about a drunk man who complains that when he has money his family thinks he is ill, but when he is broke they call him an alcoholic [85].  More recent Ghanaian examples are two popular highlife songs of the seventies by the African Brothers guitar band. One is `Yaw Berku' in which Yaw bitterly complains that although he is forty years old he does not have even forty pounds to his name, and the other is `Obiba (Someone's) Broke'   about poverty being one of the causes for people having to leave home.  An example from the dance-band highlife genre is the 1976 record `Sika' (Money) by the Uhurus International band which contains the following lines translated from Twi: `like it or not money is king, money is all powerful, have money and you will be loved and fawned upon by all... and you will be the family favourite... money is the soul of life.'        

            A  point to add here is that some popular songs suggest that poverty leads to other social problems, such as being forced to migrate from home, the topic of the African Brothers 'Obiba Broke' referred to above.  Alcoholism is another result of poverty and this link is made in the 1959 highlife song `Ewiase Ye Me' by Onyina's concert band.  In this the singer bemoans that  `although the world is sweet I don't have money or a job, so I've turned to drink to forget my problem.'  A more recent Ghanaian example from the 1980's is A.B. Crentsil's `Akpeteshie Seller' which treats the huge consumption of this locally distilled liquor as a consequence of the economic hardship the people face .[86]

            Besides just simply lamenting the state of poverty, the texts of Ghanaian  popular entertainment genres also attempt to provide reasons for economic inequity:   usually seen as stemming from two primary causes.  Firstly there are the personal moral ones of laziness and debauchery versus perseverance and hard work.  Secondly it may be seen as a result of witchcraft, magical `money doubling' and good or bad luck.

            We turn first to the moral causes, which crop up in many concert party plays and songs.  Kwaa Mensah's  previously mentioned 1950 play about a taxi driver who ends up in dirty clothes after chasing women is a case in point.  Onyina's play `The Taxi Driver And the Wicked Friend' has a similar theme, although in this case it is drink and drinking friends who lead the driver to his downfall; first to unemployment and then to prison [87]. In the Jaguar Jokers play ‘Go Back To The Land’  a farmers daughter refuses to work and takes off for the big city – only to return home in rags. Conversely, rags-to-riches is the subject  of `Ye Wo Yonko Ba Sa Wo Ba' or `treat somebody's child as your own'.  This play by Kakaiku's concert party is about the constantly toiling Cinderella-like Mansa, who later becomes a chief's wife[88] . It is interesting to note in this context that the plays of Yoruba travelling theatres also treat the unequal distribution  of wealth in terms of personal morality, wealth coming from working hard and poverty from `foolishness, laziness or moral feebleness' [89] .

            Besides moral causes, the uneven distribution of wealth and the tensions this creates is also expressed in Ghanaian (and Nigerian [90] ) popular entertainment in terms of witchcraft, `juju' and mystical luck.  For instance the Jaguar Jokers comic Opia, in his soliloquy in ‘Onipa Hia Mmoa,’  tells the audience   that debt, amongst other problems, arises from witchcraft in the family. In the same play a son  blames his mother's witchcraft as being the cause of both his alcoholism and the loss of his good job with the town council.  Another example,  is Kojo Brake's previously mentioned concert party play `So Is The World' in which a nephew attempts to `juju' his  uncle in order to obtain his wealth, which the  uncle successfully counteracts this by going to a `fetish' priest for spiritual protection.  On the other hand,  F. Micah's play `Don't Kill Yourself Because of Poverty' emphasizes the positive side of magic, for in this storya penniless, divorced and unemployed man, with the help of mystical powder obtained from a Muslim priest, gets his wife back and wins the national lottery. [91]

            Not only the plays, but also the highlife songs of Ghanaian concert parties, put sickness, suffering and the lack of financial gain down to evil and jealous people. Three examples from E.K. Nyame's Akan Trio during the 1950's are `Otomfo Me Yee Wo Den' (Enemy, What Have I Done To You), `Suro Onipa' (Fear People) and `Onipa Beka Wo Ho Asem' (People Will Gossip About You).[92]  The cause of Yaw Berku not having forty pounds to his name in the already mentioned African Brother's record of the seventies is witchcraft. Brempong's [93]  translation of the song includes the lines `it is a person from home who is doing this to me, what he has left on me is walking about.....  I am roaming about aimlessly .... I like work but my soul entirely hates money.'  Similarly in the previously mentioned African Brother's song `Obiba Broke', it is  witchcraft and poverty that forces people to leave their homes.  Yankah [94]  also makes the interesting observation that the most common topic of highlife song texts is that of misery, brought about factors that include those of poverty, hard-luck and witchcraft.

            Ghanaian highlife songs and concert plays also sometimes draw attention to and object to modern-type class formation and protest against this state of affairs from the position of the impoverished class. And one way they protest is by making fun of the rich or calling for retribution on them.  Examples of these are the African Brother's highlife `Sika Anibre Da Owu' about a greedy man whose lust for money ends in his death by execution,<sup>8</sup>  and the popular 1970's dance-tune `Yen Nyira Ye Bow Pepeepe` in which a poor akpeteshie drinking man claims `we all booze the same', whether it is this cheap local liquor or the expensive imported ones the rich like to consume.

            The modern notion of society being divided into social classes based on solely socio-economic criteria is foreign to indigenous Ghanaian cultures, [95] and so this novel state of affairs is sometimes deplored through the usage of traditional-like  proverbs and animal parables and a non-performance example is the Pidgin English slogan `monkey (i.e. the poor) de work, baboon (i.e. the rich) de chop'  has was used at one time on the badges of the Ghana Trade Union Congress.[96]

            An example from a highlife song of the late 1930's is Kwami's guitar song `Adwin De Nsum'. This is based on the Fanti proverb that although the mudfish lives in water it is unable to bath, whilst the crab who lives on dry land can always find a hole to bath in.  One interpretation of this is that water is equated with wealth; so the mudfish lives in (i.e. produces) wealth but cannot enjoy it, whereas the unproductive crab becomes rich.[97]  Another  early example is `Tengah' by Jacob Sam that is about the problems between friends, landlord and tenants, or the rich and the poor - but couched within the Fanti proverb `there's going to be rain (i.e. trouble)'.[98]

            A more recent highlife that is rooted in an Akan proverb is Nana Addo's record of the 1980s `Dan Nte Se Adako' which means as a house is not a small box you cannot carry it with you.  This song warns landlords to be patient with tenants who are in debt, as sometimes even landlords have to travel and as they cannot take their houses with them they may one-day be in the position of a tenant.[99]

            The most famous of all these class-protest highlifes in parable form is the 1967 African Brothers record `Ebi Te Yie, Ebi Nte Yie' .[100]  This means `some sit well whilst others do not' and  later became the title of one of the group's concert plays.  The song concerns a general meeting of the forest animals held around a camp fire, during which a leopard bullies and pushes a small deer away from the warmth.  Finally the deer shouts out in English `petition please, on a point of order, chairman, secretary, gentlemen' and then in Twi `ebi te yie etc'. This Twi  expression has passed into popular language, becoming the catch-phrase for social inequality in the context of modern urban economic classes based in ascription, merit and social mobility.

 

 

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