Navigation

You are here: Home › Ghana

Tag Archives | Ghana

So happy about Highlife

We really must meet Ghanaian highlife music, arollicking dance music arose in the coastal towns of Ghana in the 1920s.

As it developed, Ghanaian highlife fused international genres like the rumba and big band jazz with rhythms and melodies of many West African countries to create an optimistic sound that really took hold in the hopeful ’50s and ’60s, as African nations were becoming independent. This documentary puts the focus on Ghana and Nigeria of the ’70s, when highlife was at West Africa’s social and political core.

Ghana’s Dancing Pallbearers

I’m not quite sure what I think about this one, but I figured we should end our class week exploring Ghana with the example of a possible end of the road if you live there. If your body expires in Ghana but you want your soul to keep dancing, hire these guys to dance your coffin to the grave. Wouldn’t you want your final day to celebrate life? It’ll be be the best dance party you’ll never attend.

Next week in class we continue to celebrate life — in a much less confusing way — when we visit Nigeria.

Ewe Drumming — Ghana’s Pure Polyrhythms

Our musical adventure in Ghana begins as it should, with the rhythms of the Ewe.

The Ewe people of West Africa — Ghana, Togo, Benin and more — are revered for their traditional drumming and music, much of which features multiple rhythms that playfully cross one another throughout expansive and energetic drumming sessions. In this video our Ewe friends, performing music at a funeral, demonstrate the Agbadza rhythm.