The Late C. K. Mann, ‘Highlife Master’, ‘Osodehene’: A True Ghanaian Original.

Charles Kofi Amankwaa Mann( ‘C.K.’), was born in 1936 in Cape Coast, Ghana. Having established his music career by 1965, he achieved prominence with his song “Edina Benya”, in 1969. He went on to perform and produce numerous Highlife hits for more than forty years. Besides Ghana, he performed on several occasions in the United States, and in other places outside Ghana. He passed away on Tuesday, March 20, 2018.

C.K. Mann was certainly one of Highlife music’s foremost producers of original works. And, good heavens, he was quite prolific at it!.

One Online Dictionary illustrates the meaning of the term, “An Original”, thus:

“ If you describe someone or their work as ‘original’, you mean that they are very imaginative and have new ideas”. In other words, “capable of or given to inventing or creating something new, or thinking or acting in an independent, individual, fresh way”. And the following synonyms are listed: novelty, imagination, creativity, innovation.

‘C.K.’s brand of Highlife music, the ‘Osode’, was rooted in one type of Ghana’s indigenous complex polyrhythms and choral patterns( many utilizing ‘call and response’ structure). You could call it a type of Ghana’s Central Region Coastal ‘roots music’. The coastal fishing population from Cape Coast to Sekondi-Takoradi, via Elmina and Shama, typically performed Osode music with singing and dancing, accompanied by locally-made drums and other traditional percussion instruments.

‘ C.K.’ adapted and built upon that particular music genre. He was able to create a modernized version, which his group performed using Big Band-type ‘modern’ instruments (guitars, percussion, horns). By so doing, he popularized ‘Osode’ music, and brought it into mainstream Highlife. His music entertained, and uplifted the spirits of, scores of millions of Highlife music fans all over the world. He was wildly successful, having impressed Highlife aficionados in and outside Ghana. I had the good fortune of attending one of his electrifying performances at “Bomdwen Night Club” in Agona-Swedru, Ghana, in the late 1970s.

In Ghana, just as is generally true for most of Africa, Artists and cultural icons have, from time immemorial, more than ‘paid their dues to society’. They take something from a nation’s artistic and cultural ‘raw materials’, and create ‘new forms’ and ‘new structures’ for the nation’s domestic ‘consumption’, as well as for export! Thus, not unlike technologists, engineers, industrialists and entrepreneurs, Artists do their best work by ‘adding value’ to their vocation’s ‘raw materials’.

Now, throughout Africa’s colonial and post-colonial periods, African countries have struggled with the question of how to add value to their raw materials, for export, in order to rapidly industrialize and build national wealth. Because the most successful artists, ‘C.K’ being among them, draw so much on their creativity, originality and adaptability, artists and cultural icons have a thing or two they can teach scientists, engineers, technologists, entrepreneurs, business and health care professional. Society can learn from artists’ originality and creativity…..the importance of working with, and ‘connecting’ with, one’s local, readily available materials, in order to build upon them, and therefore add value.

C.K. Mann and the many successful Ghanaian artists have shown how Africans can achieve excellence and fulfillment in our vocational and professional endeavors, by believing in, and drawing upon, what is available within our natural environments. Our intellectual, scientific, technological and industrial pursuits must be rooted in authenticity as Africans. We need to make a determined effort not to completely divorce ourselves from our intellectual and cultural roots. We need to embrace our local raw materials, and learn to transform them, adapt them, and build upon them. Intellectuals, writers, scientists, engineers, industrialists, entrepreneurs and business professionals and investors, all must “add value” to our local African ‘raw materials’, the way C.K. Mann so successfully ‘added value’ to the ‘raw musical elements’ he extracted from the fishermen. That’s the only way Africa can truly excel, achieve sustainable development, and have something of high value to offer the world outside Africa.

Increasingly, African Health and Pharmaceutical experts must explore in a major way the medicinal potential of African plants. Our legal experts must draw upon the best parts of our traditional, non-adversarial, arbitration experiences. Our socio-cultural counselors, political and religious leaders must show the way for how Africans can take advantage of what has worked well for us, within our culture, in the past. The world will respect us more if we resolve to do well what is natural to us. The world outside Africa might even surprise us by wanting to identify with what is great out of Africa. Our artists, like ‘C.K.’, have showed the way.

Our artists have been the great ‘creators’ of Africa’s world-acclaimed cultural heritage. Above all, through music and other artistic endeavors, they have been our philosophers and teachers of life’s valuable lessons. They have been our story tellers, often weaving sentimental stories of love and love lost. Their lyrics have served as our social, political, ethical and religious conscience. Examples showing versatility of C.K. Mann’s songs are :

1. “M’atow abowa”: the emotional push-pull on spouses and parents versus in-laws.

2. “Se Oman yi be ye yie a, ne nyinara ofir hen ara”:Our nation needs all hands on deck;

3. “Medze ahobrase”: Teaches the priceless value of humility;

4. “Nyame ne mber nye mber papa”: God’s time is the best.

5. “Me do wo, me nye wo be tsena afebow”: Love till death do us part.

‘Osodehene C.K.’, through his entertaining performances and recordings, brought us an unimaginable sense of personal joy, that joy which contributes immensely to a unifying national spirit. In that category, we have C.K. and Paapa Yankson at their best with their most vibrant and danceable tunes:

“ Asafo beesuon, nyew m’asafo beesuon, wo nya ayer a wo be gor ampa a..”;
“ Adwoa Yankey……nnye wo nko na wo na ewu, w’egya wu..” ;
“Wo ma m’indzi m’agor”: Let me ‘do my thing’.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO HIGH LIFE
Below is a brief overview of Highlife’s historical and chronological development, and some of the Legends whose work has given it the global stature that it has today.

EARLY HIGH LIFE RECORDINGS:

Jacob Sam (Kwame Asare), of Sam's Trio.
First famous for guitar highlife in 1930s.
Recording career began in London, 1928.
Best known for song “Yaa Amponsah”.
Basis for many subsequent highlife hits.
Famous U.S. Musician, Paul Simon, adopted Highlife beat/rhythm of “Yaa Amponsah” for his song, "Spirit Voices" on “The Rhythm of the Saints” Album (1990).

HIGH LIFE’S SEQUENCE OF INSTRUMENTAL DEVELOPMENT

PRE-TO-POST 2^ND WORLD WAR GHANA.
RESIDENT COLONIAL MILITARY/POLICE BANDS, WESTERN INSTRUMENTS .
BIG BAND SOUND, JAZZ, CARRIBEAN CALYPSO, AFROCUBAN INFLUENCES.
TRUMPETS, TROMBONES, SAX, FLUTES CLARINETS, GUITARS, KEYBOARDS.
PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT: GUITAR BANDS.

CLASSICAL HIGH LIFE LEGENDS

KWAA MENSAH, KOO NIMO, GUY WARREN
E.T. MENSAH, KING BRUCE, JERRY HANSEN
E.K. NYAME, KWABENA ONYINA, K. GYASI
C.K. MANN, A.B. CRENTSIL, EBO TAYLOR
GYEDU BLAY AMBOLLEY, JEWELL ACKAH
PAT THOMAS, ERIC AGYEMAN, AMAKYE DEDE, GEORGE DARKO, PAAPA YANKSON
NIGERIANS: REX LAWSON, VICTOR UWAIFO, I.K. DAIRO, OSITA OSADEBE, NKENGAS, SAMMY AKPABOT, VICTOR OLAIYA

MODERN HIGH LIFE/HIP LIFE STANDOUTS

DADDY LUMBA (BORN CHARLES KWADWO FOSUH), OFORI AMPONSAH, OBUOR,
KOJO ANTWI, PRAYE TIATIA, PRAYE HONEHO,
PRAYE TENTEN, WANLOV KUBOLOR,
BEN BRAKO, NANA ACHEAMPONG,
KONTIHENE, KING AYISOBA, WUTAH,
KWABENA KWABENA.

The High Life Bibliography below provides pleasant reading, informative and stimulating in-depth reading on Highlife. The list is a documentation of the proud history and heritage of Highlife Music:

SELECTED HIGH LIFE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Professor John Collins, “ Brief History of Ghanaian HighLife”, Music Department, University of Ghana, Legon, August 2009.
Professor John Collins, “ E.T. Mensah the King of Highlife”, Off The Record Press, London, 1986, Reprinted by Anansesem Press, Accra in 1996 (ISBN No 988-552-17-3).
Professor Kwesi Yankah, “ The Akan Highlife Song: A Medium of Cultural Reflection or Deflection”, in Research in African Literature, Vol. 15, No. 4, Special Issue on Oral Poetry and Song ( Winter 1984) pp. 568-582, University of Indiana Press.
Professor Kwadwo Adum-Atta, “The Growth and Development of HighLIfe in Ghana”, project work presented to the University of Cape Coast in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a bachelor’s degree in Music, 1991
Professor Kwadwo Adum-Attah, “Nana Ampadu: Master of Highlife”, project work presented to the University of Cape Coast in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a Master of Philosophy degree, 1997.
Professor John Collins, “ West African Pop Roots”, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992. (ISBN No. 0-87722-916-3) .
Professor John Collins, “ Highlife Time”, Anansesem Press, Accra, 1994. New expanded version published 1996. (ISBN No. 9988-522-03-3)
Professor John Collins, “Ghanaian HighLife”, in African Arts , U.C.L.A., California, vol. 10, No. 3, April 1977, pp. 53-60
Dr. A. Ebo Richardson, “History, Trends in Ghanaian Popular Music”, Key Note Speaker’s Address, Presented at the Ghanaian Association of Sacramento’s Celebration of the 55^th Anniversary of Ghana’s Independence, Sacramento, California, Saturday, April 7, 2012

A.O. Ebo Richardson, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Electrical and Computer Engineering

California State University.