From Denkyira to the Streets: The Rise of the Ghanaian Bard and Its Street Descendants

When people speak of bards in Ghana, they usually mean the kwadwomfoɔ. The genre kwadwom originated in the historic Denkyira Empire from the weeping, spontaneous, and disjointed utterances of Akwaa, an individual with mental health struggles who roamed the settlement. The elders in Denkyira listened to Akwaa, polished his words, infused them with praise names of the Asantehene, and transformed Akwaa dwom into kwadwom.

​When literary critics and scholars called modern Ghanaian writers bards, they recognized this same bridge between oral chant and written verse. Figures like Atukwei Okai, Kofi Awoonor, Kofi Anyidoho, and Kwesi Brew earned this title for bringing oral performance onto the page. Poet Edward Kofi Louis explicitly embraced the name, writing poems titled The Bard, The Sages of a Bard, and Muse of a Bard. These writers became some of the bards of the word of Ghana.

​Yet the Ghanaian bard did not stop with these giants. Modern Ghanaian musicians took up the same mantle as Bards of the Street. First came Highlife pioneers and legends like Daddy Lumba, Kojo Antwi, Ofori Amponsah, Nana Acheampong, Pat Thomas, Akosua Agyapong, and Amandzeba. They passed the torch to modern Highlife, Hiplife, Afrobeats, and Dancehall artists like Reggie Rockstone, Kontihene, Obour, Okyeame Kwame, Mzbel, Guru, Bisa Kdei, eShun, Kofi Kinaata, Stonebwoy, Samini, Amerado, Shatta Wale, Ebony Reigns, Wendy Shay, and Kwesi Arthur. Spoken word poets also inherited this tradition. Through their music and poetry, they document the landscape of the nation: speaking of different towns, cities, regions, and the connecting roads that weave Ghana together, as well as the everyday realities of the people living within them.

​Whether on the page or over a speaker, all these figures take the raw emotional reality of the people—just like Akwaa's words—and turn it into a novel, spoken word piece, work of prose, or song.