{"id":1499,"date":"2020-11-03T05:22:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T05:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2022-01-04T05:27:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T05:27:57","slug":"ghanas-politics-has-strong-ties-with-performing-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/1499\/ghanas-politics-has-strong-ties-with-performing-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana\u2019s politics has strong ties with performing arts."},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Edmund John Collins*<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Towards the end of the Kwame Nkrumah era in 1966, a number of highlife artists wrote songs critical of him as Ghana\u2019s president. But during the period leading up to independence in 1957 and the early years of independence, most Ghanaian popular artists and entertainers wholeheartedly backed Nkrumah and his Convention People\u2019s Party.<\/p>\n

It is on this support by local popular artists for the independence struggle, as well as Nkrumah\u2019s Pan African and \u201cAfrican Personality\u201d ideals, that this article focuses.<\/p>\n

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, \u201cconcert party\u201d popular theatre groups staged pro-Nkrumah plays. Among them were the Axim Trio and Bob Ansah\u2019s. Bob Vans actually changed the name of his Burma Trio concert party to the Ghana Trio in 1948. This was nine years before \u201cGhana\u201d became the country\u2019s official name.<\/p>\n

In 1952 the guitarist E.K. Nyame formed his Akan Trio concert party, which for the first time fully integrated guitar band highlife into the concert dramas and performed exclusively in the vernacular. His motives were partly political. As he once told me, he wanted to get away from the \u201ccolonial ideology and British mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

E.K. Nyame\u2019s guitar band also wrote and released on record 40 highlifes in support of Nkrumah.<\/p>\n

Some of the other highlife guitar bands that supported Nkrumah were those of Kwaa Mensah, I.E. Mason, the Fanti Stars, Bob Cole, Yaw Adjei and Otoo Larte.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the highlife influenced Ewe borborbor drum and dance music created in the Kpandu area around 1950 became so closely identified with his political party that this neo-traditional recreational music became known as \u201cNkrumah\u2019s own borborbor\u201d.<\/p>\n

The more urbanised and prestigious highlife dance bands also supported Nkrumah: like Broadway, Squire Addo\u2019s London Rhythm Band, the Modernaires, the Red Spots, Joe Kelly\u2019s band and E.T. Mensah\u2019s Tempos, which played at Convention People\u2019s Party rallies and released records like\u00a0Kwame Nkrumah,\u00a0General Election\u00a0and\u00a0Ghana Freedom Highlife.<\/p>\n

Not only did the Tempos record pro-Convention People\u2019s Party highlifes, but the band\u2019s brilliant blend of highlife and jazz, as well as its use of sophisticated up-to-date imported instruments to play African songs, became the sound-symbol or zeitgeist (\u201cspirit of the age\u201d) for the early optimistic independence era.<\/p>\n

Nkrumah\u2019s quid pro quo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nkrumah recognised the vital role of local popular entertainment in the independence struggle and the creation of an African identity. This led him to endorse numerous state and parastatal highlife bands and concert parties. These included the Cocoa Marketing Board, Black Star Shipping Line, State Hotels, Armed Forces, the Workers Brigade and the Farmers Council.<\/p>\n

The coup in 1966 led to some interesting dynamics. One was that the military National Liberation Council that overthrew Nkrumah showed it understood the power wielded by the popular artists. This was demonstrated by the case of Ajax Bukana. A Nigerian musician and comedian, he came to Ghana in 1952 and literally became Nkrumah\u2019s personal \u201ccourt jester\u201d. As a result of his close association with Nkrumah, Bukana was briefly imprisoned by the police criminal investigation department immediately after the 1966 coup.<\/p>\n

Indeed the link between popular artists and Nkrumah was so strong that after the anti-Nkrumah coup the new government not only dissolved the two entertainment unions but also put a three week ban on the movement of touring concert parties.<\/p>\n

Other reasons for Nkrumah\u2019s support<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides the active role of highlife bands and concert parties in Ghana\u2019s independence struggle there were a number of other reasons why Nkrumah supported the popular performance as a third prong of his national performing arts policy.<\/p>\n

Firstly, as Ghana\u2019s independence movement was spearheaded by the mass Convention Ppeople\u2019s Party, it is not surprising that the popular music and drama of the masses was also drawn into the struggle. Indeed the so-called \u201cveranda boys\u201d from whom Nkrumah drew so much of his backing were of the same \u201cintermediate\u201d class from which most Ghanaian (and other African) popular musicians and actors were drawn. These \u201cintermediates\u201d were neither elite nor peasant, but cash-crop farmers and newly urbanised Africans who performed semi-skilled work. In short the same rural and urban masses that the Convention People\u2019s Party drew its main support from.<\/p>\n

Yet another reason for Nkrumah\u2019s endorsement of the popular arts is that, compared to ethnic based traditional music, highlife music and the concert party were \u201cnon-tribal\u201d art forms popular throughout Ghana. For instance, although the text of highlife songs and concert party dramas was mainly in the Akan and Ga languages, the Ewe, Hausa and Pidgin English languages were also sometimes used. Local popular dance music and drama therefore provided an artistic lingua franca suitable for Nkrumah\u2019s trans-ethnic nation building policy for polyglot Ghana.<\/p>\n

Yet another was the pro-Convention People\u2019s Party concert musician and actor Bob Cole, who in 1961 wrote a song that lamented the assassination of Nkrumah\u2019s Congolese colleague Patrice Lumumba. Other pan-African highlife themes are found in some of the releases of E.K. Nyame, Otoo Larte, the Builder Brigade band, S.S. Ahima, the Ramblers, Broadway \u2013 and the Uhuru dance band which derives its name from the East African Swahili word for \u201cfreedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Several highlife bands accompanied Nkrumah and represented Ghana at Pan African and international events. One particular case was that of the Tempos, who visited Guinea just after its independence in 1958 when, as E.T. Mensah told me, he was gifted money by President Sekou Tour\u00e9. At that time Ghanaians were particularly popular in Guinea, as the country had received a substantial loan from Nkrumah to overcome its initial problems at independence. The French colonial government had sabotaged the new nation\u2019s infrastructure before quitting.<\/p>\n

On this theme of pan-Africanism it should also be noted that Ghanaian highlife music is not only \u201cnon-tribal\u201d, it has some roots and extensions in other West African countries (particularly Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria). Indeed during the 1950s highlife music spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

In short, highlife not only provided Nkrumah with a readymade artistic vehicle that projected trans-ethnic national aspirations, but also became a Pan African artistic idiom that symbolised the birth of sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s first modern independent nation.<\/p>\n

\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>Professor, Department of Music, University of Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of the Kwame Nkrumah era in 1966, a number of highlife artists wrote songs critical of him as Ghana\u2019s president. But during the period leading up to independence in 1957 and the early years of independence, most Ghanaian popular artists and entertainers wholeheartedly backed Nkrumah and his Convention People\u2019s Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"The Conversation","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,27],"tags":[158,157,159],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-west-africa","tag-ghana","tag-ghanas-politics","tag-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}