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"Aja Wondo - Uppers International" from Afrobeat Airways 2
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From “Westminster music” to Afro-Funk

It was raining when we got to the beach at Saltpond, hometown of Ebo Taylor.

I had come to Accra with American public radio’s Afropop Worldwide to dig into the back story of Afro-funk—that savory blend of highlife harmony and rhythm, jazzy brass section work, and slamming grooves. Ebo, still spry and savvy at 77, is one of gods of the genre—still making great music five decades later. We had been doing the rounds with Ebo, learning about the mind-blowing menu of musical flavors that have thickened his musical stew over the years. Our mission in Saltpond was to experience one of the lesser know ingredients: konkoma, a rowdy percussion and vocal style that was probably performed on this beach back when few people had ever heard the word “highlife.” Let alone “funk.” Ebo insists that popular recreational styles like konkoma are what gave highlife, and later, Afro-funk, that all important characteristic: “rhythmic propulsion.” For that, we could happily wait out a morning rain squall.

We huddled on the concrete porch of a colonial era meeting house while the members of Bonze Konkoma, many of them Ebo’s young relatives, tuned up their frame drums, made cellphone calls, ate fish and rice from roadside cook stall, and smoked. Ebo held forth on music, expounding his own well honed funk-lore—how the British had inculcated Ghanaians with major key hymns and march band music, and genteel dance rhythms like waltz and quickstep. “That’s why nearly all highlifes are in the major mode,” Ebo declared with professorial authority. The trouble was, he said, all the lyrical, melancholy airs of the Fante-Akan from the Saltpond area, not to mention their gifts for rhythmic propulsion, had been swept aside in colonial times by what Ebo amusingly referred to as “Westminster music.”

As Taylor heard it, “When the British came and colonized this country, there was an invasion also of this Westminster Abbey kind of music, written in the major key, hymns like ‘Oh God Our Help in Ages Past.’ So, Ghanaians, naturally, adopted that kind of harmony; it became part of our lives. So when the composers of highlife wanted to compose, almost all their highlifes were in a major key.”

Two days earlier at the University of Ghana in Legon, Ebo had arranged for us to hear Dagomba music from the dry Sahel region in northern Ghana. Shaibu, a statuesque gentleman in traditional northern tunic had rocked us with swooning bluesiness on his one-string goje violin, and his voice had torn the air like a power saw, brutal and tuneful all at once. “That’s the wail of the north,” Ebo had proclaimed. “You’re talking about hot weather, food shortages, the suffering of people in the Sahara Desert. There’s not enough rain, and too much sunshine. And this guy is lamenting.” For Ebo that lament was something that had returned to Africa in the rough and ready sounds of 1960s American music, and nowhere more than in the soul cry of James Brown.

As he recalls, “Even if he sang a ballad, you could hear that there’s something burning in him, it takes you back to the north. That belt of people are really suffering, from climate and lack of vegetation. So the similarity with James Brown and the people up there--you could feel it. If he was a politician, he would win all the elections up there.”

In our beatings about Accra, we had listened to palm wine guitar picking, brass band polyphony, and the proverbial “wail of the north.” But, insisted Ebo, we needed to hear this one last ingredient in order to fully appreciate the palette from which Ghana’s Afro-funk artists had painted their masterpieces. Hence the trip to Saltpond.

Happily, the rain passed and the musicians set up in the shelter of a small ruin on the beach, the ragged remains of a single cement wall providing shelter from a lingering sea breeze. And they certainly did deliver rhythmic propulsion, as promised. Some 10 percussionists and singers laid down a righteous groove while Ebo sat at one end, howling out calls to which the musicians would respond in full-throated harmony. Eventually, the group took up an old Fante war song, “Ayesama,” and right away I recognized one of Ebo’s fine electric band recordings. As I listened to these drummers and singers making music that seemed to speak from African antiquity, I could hear in my mind Ebo’s famously brilliant brass section with its saucy punches and gloriously flowing jazz melodies. In that moment, more than any so far, the pieces came together, and I truly did feel, as Ebo had promised, that I was tasting the soul of Afro-funk.

Birth of Ghana

Back in 1960, when Ebo Taylor was just starting out as a musician, Ghana was awash in heady cultural politics. The first nation to win its independence from colonial rule, it was led by the visionary Kwame Nkrumah, who quickly became a role model for a new generation of pan-Africanist leaders. The music of the day was highlife, a fusion of blustery brass band marching songs, folksy palm wine guitar repertoire, and a plethora of celebratory “proto-highlife” percussion and vocal styles (osibisaaba, ashiko, and konkoma). Highlife music fulfilled a central tenant of Nkrumah’s pan-African thinking: it transcended ethnicity. That’s why it appealed across boundaries of class, tribe, language, and even nationality. In the 1960s, vastly more populous Nigeria was completely smitten with the highlife sound of the Ramblers, the Uhuru Dance band, Broadway and many more - Ghana’s lasting gift to West African music.

But over the course of the ‘60s, new revolutions were brewing in popular music culture. Waves of rock ‘n roll, jazz, R&B, and, especially important for Ghana, funk, were washing over the world’s airwaves. Ghanaians heard themselves right away in these African American sounds. The guttural cries and exclamations of James Brown reminded Ghanaians of the anguished vocal styles of West Africa’s northern Sahel region. The rhythmic propulsion, the polyrhythmic grooves, the use of minor key harmonies - the “blues” they heard in the music coming from America in the ‘60s, reconnected them with strong rhythms and moody harmonies from their own past, reflected back through veil of history—slavery, war, emancipation, and the rising civil rights movement.

James Brown´s “I’m Black and I’m Proud” made deep sense in Ghanaian ears, even as it urged them to dig into their own history. For many musicians of the ‘60s and ‘70s, James Brow’s funk felt both like a new discovery and also a kind of homecoming. And local music would not be the same again.

By the 1970s, the era so vividly documented in this compilation, it was the time of Afro-funk, funky highlife, Mondo Soul Funk, or, as Nigeria’s Fela Kuti would indelibly christen his own variation on this fusion of highlife, funk, and jazz, Afrobeat.

Soul to Soul

A 1971 mega-concert in Accra featured Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, The Harlem Boys Choir and other luminaries of black American music, sometimes playing alongside or even collaborating with the most popular musicians in Ghana at the time. The Soul to Soul concert was a landmark for the era’s musicians, a singular (sadly) moment of direct personal connection with new styles of black music from across the Atlantic.

At the time, Ghana’s major cities, notably Accra and Kumasi, were alive with bands and clubs. In Accra alone, there was the TipToe, the Lido, the Apollo Theatre, the Metropole, The Seaview, the Star Hotel, the Ringway Hotel, all throbbing with live energy. Bands played for the lunch hour, even on weekdays. On weekend nights, a club might stage three bands, ending after 3AM. As any live music junkie knows, nothing makes a band tighter than a regime like that, week after week after week. This, perhaps more than anything, helps explain the intensity of this eras popular music in Ghana.

The radio waves crackled with new local music, alongside the big hits from Nigeria, Congo, and, of course, the UK and USA. This was a heyday for recording and record production in Ghana as well. A key producer behind a number of the songs on this collection was Dick Essilfie-Bonzie, creator of Essiebons Music. It was Essiebons who spotted Ebo Taylor’s prowess as a schooled musical arranger, with knowledge of jazz, and a deep feel for highlife, funk, and local tradition. Essiebons not only produced Taylor in a series of important bands, but used him as an arranger for other artists he was producing.

Essiebons was always ahead of the curve. His productions pushed Afro-funk before the public was ready to embrace it, but people gradually came around. He nurtured talent, shaped the tastes of a national audience, and, importantly, kept his ear tuned to music cropping out outside the capital, Accra.

Kumasi and the Upper Regions

Coastal capitals have always been the economic and cultural heartbeat of much of West Africa. Strategically developed during colonial times as ports and hubs to facilitate the triangular trade to and from Europe and the Americas, these cities have also formed the strongholds of the continent's 1970s musical renaissance. That, however, should not detract from the sprawling metropolises deeper inland, which also deserve credit for their contribution to the arts. Kumasi is one of those cities, and served as a factory for musical talent with a consistently strong production line. So it comes as no surprise that the preponderance of artists on this compilation began their careers in Ghana’s second city. Kumasi’s economy boomed in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. The city’s storied history as center of the Ashanti Empire—famed for its patronage of musicians—lingered strongly in the city’s collective memory. Kumasi also holds an important place in the Afro-funk story. This was where Sierra Leone’s Geraldo Pino and his band The Heartbeats played their first gigs in Ghana.

Mr Ofori, the producer of the Cutlass Band claims that there was “more talent” in Kumasi than in Accra. Some might dispute that, but there´s no disputing that, as speakers of Akan languages (including Ashanti), Kumasi singers could produce music with a larger potential market across the country.

Our special envoyé Vikram Sohonie made the trip to Kumasi to meet two of the city´s most important producers, Mr Ofori and A.K Brobbey. Here’s what he had to report:

Ofori Brothers

Sometimes, things can go your way without you even noticing. I had arrived in Kumasi late night without a place to stay and traversed the city to find the most affordable accommodation, settling finally on the Golden Gate Hotel. As I arranged to meet Mr. Ofori, one half of the Ofori Brothers label who produced The Cutlass Band's "Obiara Wondo," in the lobby the morning after checking in, I had little idea of my chosen hotel's nostalgic significance. The topic of popular ‘70s music venues inevitably came up during our early morning chat. Ofori was accompanied by friend and fellow producer Oheneba Mok, who ran down a list of nightspots and their respective clientele: "Hotel Americana - that was where the students partied..." Before he could continue, we hear, "Hotel Americana? Are you looking for the Hotel Americana? This was it! You're in it!" from an eavesdropping receptionist projecting her voice across the hall. Ofori and Amok took a moment to look around before chuckling to confirm the receptionist's claim, while I was simply bemused that, of the countless motels in the city, I had settled on the one most relevant to my assignment. Things were going my way and, as Ofori would attest, things once went his way too:

I was born in Kumasi in 1948 and entered music during the early 70s. I had a record shop called "Ofo Bros" but there was a shortage of records - a lack of stuff to keep it going so I decided to start signing artists. So, with my brother, we established Ofo Bros. I signed my first artist - Paa Bobo - in 1976. At that time, there was only one recording company in Kumasi - Ambassador Records. We had K. Frimpong on the label as well as A.B. Crentsil and B.B. Collins. I had a lot of hits - "Kyenkyen Biaro" - that was by K. Frimpong but it was a hit only in Ghana; A.B. Crentsil's "Adwa" was the one that went 'international' - to the Ivory Coast and so on. There were several styles across my label: Highlife, Afro Beat - with Cutlass and Tony Sarfo, funk... a funkier kind of beat at least, gospel music.

Kumasi was a different scene altogether from Accra. We had a good studio here but it wasn't better than Accra's. See, there was more talent in Kumasi. We would send artists to Accra to record but the talent was here. We were more experimental here as well - Kumasi was the first to take on Afro Beat with Tony Sarfo's "Amina." On top of that, Kumasi musicians had a wider appeal because they spoke in the Akan language - which is what over half the country speaks.

Accra producers - like Essiebons - would send scouts to identify talent in Kumasi but I would scout myself. It was all about competition, but there was cooperation too. Essiebons, for instance, is my 'master,' having taught me a few things about managing a label.

I had a lot to give to artists, a lot of ideas to help them be a hit. I encouraged some artists to do music about funerals because Ghanaians really celebrate funerals. But it was all about the lyrics - they had to be powerful, they had to be funny. Words sold, not rhythms.

But this was not always the case. I started working with the Cutlass Band - a small band - in 1974. We only did one song together, which was "Obiara Wondo." It was a political song that said you should "feed yourself." Everyone should "farm and eat." This is one of the reasons "Obiara Wondo" wasn't a very popular song back then - political songs don't sell. Not. at. all. That and the public didn't accept the sound. I.K. Anin, the band's leader, was a young radical with his sound - he loved the Afrobeat style. You have to be creative to sell - and they were - but they weren't together long and didn't have any hits that I can remember. The band collapsed after four years.

By the early 1980s, I was enjoying the most success. But then, you could go out and buy a cassette and it was over. The producers put so much money into a song, a full LP. When piracy began, it crippled the industry and it crippled me. I made plans to eventually get out of this business. By 1985, I left the industry and gave up being a producer, all because of piracy. That was then. Now, I'm a chicken farmer, producing eggs and selling hens - that's how I've learned to get by."

A.K Brobbey - Producer of the year

Ofori believed that words, not rhythms, sold pop music, and there`s some truth in that. In the dawning era of Afro-funk, this proposition would be put to the test as funky songs sung even in minority languages, like Hausa from the Islamic far north, would capture a national, even regional, audience. The Moslems, a band filled out with musicians from the north, released their track “Kana Soro” on Brobisco, a label ran and managed by A.K Brobbey, who accepted to met me for an interview.

Maneuvering the city's compact and often crowded streets, I find myself at the central market - a stone-vaulted labyrinth of incredibly narrow alleyways where one must negotiate with layers of human traffic comprising traders, sellers, buyers, women transporting heavy goods and any and everyone ensuring that the cogs powering this charmingly chaotic exchange of raw urban commerce remain well-oiled. I'm offered a brief moment of respite from the business bedlam - or so I thought - when I dash up a flight of stairs. After slaloming through a butcher's corner and a carpenter's workshop, I'm finally at Brobbey's office - a small room built with wooden planks and unintentionally decorated with old tapes and some of the very first LPs to ever be recorded in Ghana. The man himself stands guard at his desk and, amid the flurry of activity around him, briefly recalls his time as a heavyweight in Kumasi's music scene:

I started my career in the music industry in Kumasi around 1960. My uncle used to own a music store - Brobisco's House of Music - and for few years after school, I would help him operate and sell records. By the time I had my own production company, I signed Los Issufu and his Moslems, who were filled with musicians from the north but founded in Kumasi in 1969. They were originally known as the Okoh Band and, at that time, they were the only band from the north. Their style was known as Tanga Beat. I chose to work with them because they managed to catch my attention by playing an instrument from the north that was like a guitar, but it was an unusuals guitar - it had an Islamic twang to it, something unique. They were a successful band. You see, Muslim bands were scarce because the people from the north did not have much knowledge of music - composing, arranging and such.

1972 was really the peak of the Kumasi music industry - everyone wanted to come here. Producers were everywhere. I'd say that around that time was the peak of Los Issufu as well. K. Frimpong, during his short stint, and Vis-a-Vis Band were my most successful artists. It all went to waste in 1980 because of a lot of political and economic problems.

Tanga Beat nurtured one of the era’s most influential northern artist fusing highlife and funk, El Hadji K. Frimpong. Frimpong’s superb track “Abrabo” puts the sizzle and pump of afrobeat into the sweet melancholy of syki highlife, noteworthy for its use of the minor key so appreciated by Ebo Taylor and others.

Another great act hailing from the north was Uppers International. The band’s name literally refers to the upper, or northern, regions of Ghana. The Uppers song “Aja Wondo” exemplifies the region’s connection to the funk aesthetic remarked on by so many veteran artists in Ghana. The Uppers sang songs like this in Hausa, understood only in the north of the country, but, once again, their sound, building on funk and traditional local elements, met with broad appeal, especially when combined with the amazing voice of Christy Azumah.

The End of an Era

After a series of political coups and urban curfews, the curtain fell decisively on Ghana’s beautiful music scene in 1979. A newly ascendant leader, Jerry Rawlings, imposed a curfew that lasted some three years, and killed live music in Ghana’s cities. The most popular musicians moved to Lagos, Abidjan, London, New York, and elsewhere. Many went to Germany and spawned the high-tech Berger highlife sound. Smaller musicians went into the churches, which is why to this day, some of the funkiest live music you will hear in Ghana is in church. But these days, with the rise of local hiphop (hiplife), Ghanaian musicians are taking stock of the past, sampling tracks and collaborating with living veterans of the Afro-funk 70s.

When local rap and hip hop first took hold in Ghana in the ‘90s, the technology and miming of pre-recorded vocals was not only accepted. It was considered cool. Live bands were for grandma and grandpa (and church, of course). But, happily, this is starting to change. The joys of live music are creeping back into Ghana’s urban nightlife, thought it has a long way to go to approach the live excitement of the Afro-funk era. Gyedu Blay Ambolley does a weekly set of “highlife Afro jazz” at a tony bar and grill called +231—that’s Ghana’s international telephone code. Hiplifers particularly embrace Ambolley. They might question his claim to have recorded the world’s first commercial rap song, “Simigwadu,” in 1973, but they dig the song’s funky spirit, and do consider Ambolley pretty hip for his age. Furthermore, we saw some of the same musicians who play jazzy jams with Ambolley at +233 turning up at The Lexington a few nights later to pump out Afrobeat and R&B lines in a band backing the rapper M.Anifest. In the studio, rappers and mixers have been known to dice up old tracks by highlife greats like Nana Ampadu and K. Frimpong. So the generations are talking, slowly but surely.

Return from Saltpond

On the ride back to our lodge from after the konkoma jam session at the beach with Ebo Taylor, our the taxi driver is flipping through Accra’s 27 or so radio stations. We hear fragments of GH rap, Twi pop, pidgin English preaching, gospel music, the latest Azonto dance tracks, and the odd echo of the old highlife days. It’s a dizzying mix, and sitting in the midst of it, in the slow, steamy, crawl of an Accra traffic jam, I find myself wondering what of it all will really last? When outsiders like Samy or the Afropop team come to Ghana in search of lost musical treasures, we make our picks. We cast our votes. Finally, it’s the listeners of the future who will have the last word, but I do know this: What happened in Ghana’s music in the 1970s was special. It was the sort of spectacular creative combustion that can only materialize when the right ideas and impulses come together at the right moment, in the right hands.

The musicians on this collection came of age during the same years as Nigeria’s most legendary musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Fela’s music was cut from the same cloth, though he added one distinctive element to the mix: fiercely engaged political messages. Ghanaian artists and producers knew this approach would not sell in Ghana, and few if any emulated it. In fact, a number of Fela’s musical peers, including Ambolley, Taylor, and Francis Fuster, musical director of Pino’s Heartbeats, all tried to talk Fela out of the politics. Some even felt that Fela’s music went downhill from its promising beginnings once he became preoccupied with political battles. As it turned out, Fela went all the way, becoming a legend, as all these artists would acknowledge. But from a musical standpoint, collections like this offer an invaluable service, letting us sample so much more of the spectacular originality and richness from this unique period in West African musical history.

Ghana’s Afro-funk is music build to last, and as my colleague Mark LeVine put it at the end of Afropop’s two weeks in Ghana, once you’ve heard this music, “the game is over. All you want is more.”

Banning Eyre - Afropop Senior Editor



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