Visions of a New World – Ghana

Playlist

Ghana offers a great range of contemporary music, inspired by international trends like trap and dancehall, mixed with local rhythms and melodies, sung in different languages, with topics related to corruption, to religion to champagne. Enjoy this round up with recent tracks and video clips.

In Ghana they call it hiplife or just afropop or local songs, in Anglophone African Diasporas they sometimes use the term afrobeats. These popular sounds co-emerged with privatisation of media in Ghana in the early 1990s, promoted through then new private radio stations, produced in small studios by pioneers like Reggie Rockstone. Local rappers started to spit lyrics in local languages like Ewe, Ga or Pidgin, and thanks to digitalization of production and promotion these sounds became less and less music of an elite, but a sound through which young people from different regions and backgrounds in Ghana aspire to reach status, popularity, fame, money, success.

These tracks at times use local rhythms, or melodies and harmonies from local highlife music – the former popular music in Ghana. Others are full of international flavours: dancehall, ragga, reggae, and recently US American trap – similar to a lot of rap music worldwide that today is inspired by OG Maco and other trap rappers. Some of these tracks and clips are socially and politically engaged. Some celebrate lifestyle in big villas, swimming pools, expensive cars, and champagne. Others deal with slavery, the colonial past, and with religion – especially with the fast growing number of Pentecostal churches in the region. Others again are full of exoticism: videos play in traditional villages, and they picture lions, zebras or giraffes – similar to house music videos in South Africa (see article by Percy Mabandu on Norient).

Today, these sounds make around 40% of the Ghanaian music market, while most of the rest is Gospel music (see article by Florian Carl on Norient). Today’s big stars – i.e. Sarkodie, Fuse OGD, R2Bees or D-Black – became ambassadors of international brands and produce expensive clips in Ghana and abroad. The music again is well connected to Ghanaian Diasporas in the US and Europe. Many singers, producers and DJ’s lived abroad at least once in their lives, and some do so today, but try to keep one foot into Ghana.

Overall this music is a sign for changes on many levels: of growing transnational networks between Africa and the world, of new business ideas in music production and consumption, for changing power and speaking roles in Ghanaian society (usually the elders spoke, now young rappers and poets do), for the vision that international urban music trends increasingly come in fact from African cities. Think of Kuduro, Azonto or Mahragan.

«They only hear you when you show them nudes
They never wanna hear you when it’s about the people
Never wanna hear you when it’s about the country
Never wanna hear you
Never wanna hear you»

(Poetra Asantewa «Naked Listeners»)

Recommended Literature

→ Jesse Weaver Shipley. 2013. Living the Hiplife. Duke University Press
→ Nathan Plagman. 2012. Highlife Saturday Night. Indiana University Press

Linked Projects

→ Film contradict (see here and below)
→ New Norient Book Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World (see and order here)

Track, Trap and Video Selection

Enjoy some of the latest and few older tracks and video clips from Ghana and from the Ghanaian Diaspora: Hiplife, Afrobeats, Afropop, Azonto, Spoken Word, Trap, Trapzonto, and other styles and sub styles. Collected with the help of Benjamin Lebrave from Akwaaba Music, Wanlov the Kubolor and M3nsa from the FOKN Bois, our friends Jay Rutledge and Georg Milz from Outhere Records in Munich, Awesome Tapes from Africa, and others. Thanks a lot of your work, efforts, and support.

With: the FOKN Bois, Worlasi, Jojo Abot, Akan Music, Poetra Asantewa, M.anifest, Kwame Write, Yaa Pono, Kofi Kinaata, Lady Jay, Kuvie, King Ayisoba, Tony Harmony, Ko-Jo Cue, Bisa Kdei, Edem, DJ Katapila, Mutombo Da Poet, RedRed Music, Dark Suburb, and others.

Biography

Dr. Thomas Burkhalter is an anthropologist/ethnomusicologist, AV-artist, and writer from Bern (Switzerland). He is the founder and director of Norient and the Norient Festival (NF), co-directed AV-performances and documentary films (e.g. «Contradict», Berner Filmpreis 2020 + Al-Jazeera Witness), and is the author and co-editor of several books (e.g., «Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut», Routledge, «The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East», Wesleyan University Press). He teaches regularly at universities, and runs workshops for arts institutions. Since 2022 he produces the Norient Mixtape for Swiss National Radio SRF3. Currently, he is working on his new music duo «Melodies In My Head», and on the podcast series «Long Take: Life as an Artist». Follow him on Instagram, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Meta.

Published on February 12, 2016

Last updated on February 03, 2022

Topics

Digitization

Music Business

New Geographies

All Topics

Specials

Contradict

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The Sound of Cumbia

Podcast

by Moses Iten

Cumbia is the most popular dance music in Mexico and booms out of the giant sound systems of the Sonidos. The Australian DJ and musician Moses Iten captivated the Cumbia’s hypnotic, dragging rhythm in a podcast.

Cumbia came to Mexico as the folk music of Colombia in the 1950s but the Mexicans couldn’t dance to it, so they slowed it down and then gradually transformed it. This music is mostly played be The Sonideros, the DJs who mix the music and talk over it have now become famous right across Latin America but the roots of Mexican Cumbia are in the tough barrios where crime and poverty have inspired many of its lyrics.

Jorge Solis in his record store in La Indepe (photo: Moses Iten)

As the Australian DJ and musician Moses Iten gained an international reputation as a pioneer in the creation of a style called Cumbia Digital, he was invited to perform in Mexico. This podcast is the story of his journey across Mexico and into the heart of Cumbia.

On his journey through the country Iten, also known as Saca La Mois DJ!! – the DJ behind the Cumbia Cosmonauts – got an insider’s view of the alternative electro-tropical community of Mexico. Consolidating their place as one of the most important acts in the global Nu-Cumbia and Tropical Bass scenes, the Cumbia Cosmonauts released an EP of remixes featuring a selection of the most representative exponents of this movement exploding all over Mexico: Sonido Satanas, The Ghost, Yelram Selectah, Bumb-Ay, Malacopa Bros and HNRY.

Mexico Remixes EP by Cumbia Cosmonauts

The podcast was first published by ABC Radio National.

Biography

Moses Iten is a Musician and DJ from Australia.

Published on March 05, 2016

Last updated on December 21, 2020

Topics

Dance

Place

All Topics

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Das Internet umarmen oder untergehen

Radio

by Michael Spahr

RaBe-Info-Redaktionsleiter Michael Spahr spricht mit der amerikanischen Radiolegende Ken Freedman über die Zukunft von Gemeinschaftsradios wie WFMU oder Radio Bern RaBe.

Gemeinschaftsradios stehen vor einem Scheideweg: Der Medienwandel, der die traditionelle Presse und das klassische Fernsehen erreicht hat, bedroht nun auch die Radiowelt. Entweder lernen Gemeinschaftsradios ihre Nische im World Wide Web zu verkaufen oder sie halten an UKW fest und drohen zu verschwinden.

Gemeinschaftsradios werden hauptsächlich von Freiwilligen getragen, von leidenschaftlichen RadiomacherInnen, welche das Medium in seiner ganzen Breite auskosten. Sie sind unkommerziell und sozial, eigentlich die «Sozialen Medien» der ersten Stunde. Sie erfreuen ihre Fans, sie ärgern das Establishment. In diktatorischen Gesellschaften stehen sie unter konstantem politischen Druck. In der sogenannten «freien Welt» kämpfen sie ums Überleben, weil sie meistens am Hungertuch nagen, da sie nicht nach kapitalistischen Grundsätzen funktionieren. Der Freiraum, den Gemeinschaftsradios bieten, ist aber auch eine Chance: antiautoritäre oder flache Hierarchien erlauben es Nerds, sich kreativ auszuleben - nicht nur beim Radioprogramm. Auch bei der Technologie gehören solche Radios oft zur Avantgarde. Ken Freedman von WFMU entwickelt eigene Webtools (Audience Engine), um das Publikum stärker ans Radio zu binden. Das Berner Radio RaBe war eines der ersten Radios in der Schweiz, das einen Webstream hatte.

Der Film Sex and Broadcasting gibt einem Einblick in die wunderbare Welt der Gemeinschaftsradios - die Geschichte von WFMU in New Jersey/New York könnte auch die Geschichte von einem anderen Gemeinschaftsradio sein. Im folgenden Gespräch haben sich zwei «Soulmates» gefunden. Ken Freedman leitet seit 30 Jahren WFMU. Michael Spahr arbeitet bei RaBe, dem Berner Gemeinschaftsradio, das 2016 sein 20-jähriges Jubiläum feiert.

Trailer

Ein Film über WFMU, die verrückteste, aber wahrscheinlich grossartigste Radiostation der Welt. WFMU ist die Vision des New Yorkers Ken Friedman, der den Sender frei und unabhängig behalten will und dabei auch mal mit den stationseigenen DJs in Konflikt gerät. Skurril, komisch und herzerwärmend.

Biography

Michael Spahr (VJ Rhaps) is a historian MA, journalist, and media artist. He was on the board of Norient from 2008 until 2014. He developed the website norient.com. He was the co-founder and co-director (2009–2014) of the Norient Musikfilm Festival. He contributed with his video art to the audio-visual scientific media performances of Norient. He was the host and DJ of Norients monthly radio show Sonic Traces on Radio RaBe. He works as a freelance artist, film maker, and journalist in Bern (Switzerland). Follow him on his Website.