A Comic History Of Musical Ghana Duodu

I see that my good friend Ken Amankwaa, Chairman of Ghana@60 , and his committee of illustrious persons planning the 60^thanniversary celebrations of Ghana's independence, are already catching a lot of flak. This is par for the course, for there are too many subjective factors involved in carrying out such an assignment.

In particular, some people are annoyed with the committee for selecting a gospel singer to lead a major performance. Matters of taste are, of course, problematic, in the sense that few can agree on what, for instance, constitutes a good musical event. If you asked me, I would say nothing but jazz. But I remember once courting the contempt of a friend because I preferred Ben Webster to Sonny Rollins. I in turn told him, when he asked me whether I liked Jimmy Smith: “If I want to hear an organ, I shall go to church and hear it there!” This was completely unfair of me, for I have since seen Jimmy Smith in action and he doesn't only play the organ. He has a good guitarist, and even the organ, in close proximity, can provide exciting jazz music.I've been ashamed of my philistinism of the period ever since

Nearer home, someone would say we should lay the emphasis on “hi-life”. But 'hi-life' of what type? E T Mensah's; or Onyina's; or Koo Nimo's; or Broadway Band's; or that of Black Beats or George Darko's? They are all different but have elements that are common to each of them. What I like is not necessarily what someone else also likes. People try to compromise so as to accommodate other people's tastes. But it is no easy task.

If my friend Kwadwo Donkor (a professioal dipolmat who was very good at composing and arranging music) were still alive (he passed in the first half of last year, to my utter consternation, as I didn't hear of his death early enough to pay a fitting tribute to him) I would say he should be invited to make a presentation revisiting the magnificent “Yerefrefre” opus he recorded with the Ogyatanaa Show Band some years ago. It can be found on Youtube at:

Listening to it brings back memories of all sorts of things that create a sad smile on the lips of those of us who were lucky enough to begin our adult lives in those golden years described by my African-American friend, the late Julian Mayfield, as – “when Ghana was Ghana”.

Which person who was alive at the time can forget the sudden explosion on to the Ghana musical scene of EK's Band, led by E K Nyame and fronted by the silken voice of Kobina Okai? Even though there was no radio in my town, one or two people owned hand-wound gramophones (those you needed a “needle” in order to play!) and suddenly, everyone in the town was jiving to a super-hot tune that EK's had just released: “Ode aduro aye me o, Small Boy, nye me bi a!” [It's not my fault, oh, Small Boy! – the man has bewitched me with juju!]

On the flip side of this most popular tune was another equally magnificent number,”Anomaa ei, fa me ko oo!” [Oh bird, please fly me to my lover!) which, to me, sounded even better than “Small Boy”.

However, as far as the imagination of those of us who were young romantics went – you know, just when bwere experimenting with love for the first time as adolescents.) the idea of a “Small Boy” who was basically receiving an apology from a higher-placed woman who had been forced to leave her cute “Small Boy” and give herself to a man whom she did not love, but whose "power" she hadn't been able to resist (she claimed it was aduro ["juju"] that had made her do (it!) but it could just as well have been money!). Now, that was absolute honey in our ears. Tragic love of the Romeo and Juliet type, what? Most of us lived with the hope of one day, we would be "awarded" a “scholarship” by a woman who was well-to-do enough to dish out both cash and good sex to us. And EK's Band had validated, with their beautiful song, our rationalisation of why such “scholarships” didn't come our way so often! We danced and danced to EK's Band, and we soon knew all the lyrics by heart, for they did tell told our story. Or at least the sory of our deepest longings.

Kwadwo Donkor's Yerefrefre was also wonderful in recalling the songs of some of the great composers who had provided great enjoyment to our parents and whom we'd had to listen to as kids, without really understanding what they were saying. Two of my father's favourites who also caught the ear of Kwadwo Donkor were Sam (otherwise known as Kwame Asare) and Kwasi Manu. Sam's greatest song, if I am to judge by how often my father played it, was Lamle. It was a catchy tune which praised to the high heavens, the beauty of a woman called Lamle. Sam sang as follows:

Lamle aa na meware no! [It's only Lamle that I shall marry];

Obaa Lamle aa na meware no (The woman Lamle is the only one I shall marry!]...

Sam went on to describe Lamle thus:
Obaa Lamle a mereka n'asem yi,
Ne kon tse de adenkum;....
Ne tsir nnwi tse de srekye ahoma
Se mehu no a meda a onnye yie,
Mannhunu no nso a, meda a onnye yie....
Se meredzidzi po na metse nedzin a na maduan no abo fom!

Lamle aa a na meware no!
[This Lamle woman I'm talking about
Has a neck that's as slim and straight
As the neck of a gourd!
Her hair is soft like strings of silk;
When I see her or hear her name, I can't sleep,

And when I don't see her or hear her name,
I can't sleep!
When I'm eating and I hear her name
The food immediately falls off the plate to the ground!

Lamle is the one Im goig to marry!]
Now, where do we get such imaginative songsters these days, with so many of our musicians merely content to mimic American rappers-mimicking-African griots? When you heard those musciains of old, you were caught in the web of their their authenticity, no less. Immediately. Indefatigably. No straining -- either of the imagination, or of literal comprehension.

Another great musician fondly remembered by Kwadwo Donkor in Yerefrefre is Kwasi Manu. Unfortunately, Kwadwo didn't touch on my own favourite Kwasi Manu song, Yaw Ampomah, which was fortunate enough to hear Kwasi Manu play in person, when he made an unexpected stop at my father's shop one day. Kwadwo Donkor dwelt, instead, on the far less complex number, Akwasua Kuma woama mabre bre hunu, The reason why I'm smitten with Yaw Ampomah is that it has the most intricate guitar opening to a song that I have ever heard played by a Ghanaian musician.To have heard itso often on a record and then hear Kwasi Manu play it only a few feet away from me -- physically-spwaking -- is one of the greatest treasures I store in my memory.

When he turns his attention to the more modern composers, Kwadwo Donkor reminds us of Otoo Lartey [Ntoniaa waa].

However, if I were asked to do a proper retrospective of musical Ghana, I would choose, as my point of departure, Kwadwo Donkor's own Mmobrowa (with Ogyatanaa) Again, it's on Youtube:

He starts with a tribute to C K Mann (pre-Ajoa Yankey! Oh – and the Stick of Moses); then he moves on to Dr K Gyasi. (By the way, a certain age group will remember Mansa, wo mma o! by K Gyasi as a major hit, reflecting as it does, the dip in Ghana's economy -- and politics -- in the mid-1960s.)

Okay, I don't want to give the entire game away, but are you capable of smiling with some self-indulgence, be it said, at such expressions as:

molasses (akpeteshie);
dier ehuo ('flying' clothes; i.e. cheap);

broni waawu! [clothes picked off dead white people ad sold in Ghanaian markets);

lai momo (old flame);
charlie-wote (fliflop sandals);

abele (maize dance];
bo so er [hit on it now!]
soko na mmaa wope [what do women like most?];

shu legeer; lege le-zuuu! (catch-phrase of responses made during rascally dancing);

enyifa-nyifa na'raa nyen (slogan for changing from driving on the left to driving on the right-hand side of the road).

walantu-walansa! (you alone go dig it and dump it by yourself!)

There are many such amusing ditties from the secrets of our musical history which could be harnessed and presented as the testimony to a humorous or even comical evolution of the social and political life of Ghana since 1957.

Oh,I nearly forgot Kwadwo Donkor's tribute to Kwabena Onyina, which stands as an eternal truth:

Ebeye den na wonnko, ohia asoma wo! [How will you fail to run the errand, when it's poverty that's sending you?]

Oh yes! There is plenty in the land to make us smile and remember yesterda's triumphs and tribulations. Don't let us ignore it and go for foreign things. It is GHANA we are celebrating, right?

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