Preserving Music And More

Saturday September 19, 2009
By Baba Abdulai

It always gladdens my heart when I see that in
dividuals are making efforts to preserve for posterity, materials that are very rich in our history.

This feeling, I believe, stems from what I saw happened to films on Ghana when they were made a bonfire at the premises of the former Ghana Films Industry Corporation (GFIC).

Later it was sold to the Malaysians in the 1990s.

I am told that after the 24th February, 1966, coup d’etat that overthrew the government of President Kwame Nkrumah, his books, photographs and other materials of historical importance were burnt on the orders of the coup plotters in a desperate and vain attempt at obliterating from Ghana, President Nkrumah’s name and memory.

Today, largely because of that act of political stupidity, getting President Nkrumah’s books to buy in Ghana is not possible.

Either as a country we do not appreciate the value of preserving materials about ourselves or as a people we are in love with rather keeping materials that tell us about other peoples cultures and histories.

Let us take highlife music, for example.
Getting vintage highlife music like those recorded by highlife greats like E.T. Mensah and the Tempos Band, King Bruce and the Black Beats, Jerry Hansen and the Ramblers International, Uhuru Band, Edikanfo, Sweet Beans, Hedzolleh Sounds, Kofi Ani Johnson and many others, is a difficult task.

One of the reasons why it is difficult getting the works of those mentioned above is that preservation of their works for future re-releases is zero.

In the few instances where they could be found, they are with individual highlife connoisseurs and in formats that today’s compact discs players cannot play them.

So, when I was invited by the Goethe Institut to an event last Saturday regarding a collaboration they have made with Professor John Collins’ Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF), I gladly accepted the invitation.

A brief history of the collaboration is that between January and March, this year, the Goethe Institut in Accra gave funds to the BAPMAF archives and its Highlife Music Institute for refurbishment of their premises for public display and also for purchase of electronic equipment to help in BAPMAF’s ongoing digitisation of 1,500 hours of music, over one thousand photographs and hundreds of books, documents, speeches, brochures, posters, record sleeves and newspaper cuttings.

In relation to the above stated help BAPMAF received from Goethe Institut, it has been a major source of materials on highlife history for Big Ben Ajokpa, a disc jockey with the Pokuase-based Omanye FM radio station.

Also, BAPMAF is digitising and scanning album covers of a forty-item collection of Nii Anum Telfer’s records of the music of Glen Warren, later Ghanaba, Wulomei and others.

Other things that BAPMAF is doing are preparing audio samples and PDF file reading materials on compact discs for University of Ghana Music Department undergraduate courses on Ghanaian and African popular music, and the preparation of digitised song samples, photos and reading materials for Professor Collins as co-convenor of the New York University Faculty Network Resource seminar on ‘The African Roots of Jazz’.

Again, BAPMAF is digitising twenty-two videos of interviews and, or, performances by Jaguar Jokers, Koo Nimo, Ghanaba, Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia, Sloopy Mike Gyamfi, Fanti Adaba Brass Band, traditional Ga and Ewe Gome, Kolomashie, Kpanlogo, Tigari and Agbada groups.

The rest are NAKOREX, Nana Kwame Ampadu and the African Brothers Band, E.T. Mensah, Papa Yankson, the Adekyeman Group and other highlife music acts.

What I saw last Saturday, such as posters advertising shows many years ago of the Showman of Africa Bob Pinodo, Afua Adjepong, Jaguar Jokers, Edikanfo and also photos of Guitar Boy Victor Uwaifor, King Bruce, E.T. Mensah, and others, made me appreciate the more the need for preservation of such historical and cultural materials.

The BAPMAF Highlife Institute has 1,100 photographs, 700 publications and other documents, brochures, speeches, posters, record sleeves and 50 recorded videos.

It also has 1,500 hours of recorded music; including 780 old highlife songs on shellac 78 rpm records and master-tapes of Ghanaian songs recorded at the Bokoor Recording Studio in the 1980s.

The highlife photographic exhibition is organised into 15 separate categories made up of Adaha brass bands, Konkoma, Gome, Kpanlogo, Palmwine and Guitar bands of people like Kwaa Mensah, E.K. Nyame and Koo Nimo.

There are also photographs of dance orchestras and bands like those led by King Bruce and E.T. Mensah, and Afro-fusion music of Ghanaba, Osibisa, Hedzolleh and Fela Anikulapko Kuti.

Also on the exhibition are photographs of Wulomei, a number of female artistes, local gospel groups, local reggae and Burger highlife artistes and Ghanaian music unions.

I can go on and on, but suffice it to say that such important work of historic significance should not be limited to Accra alone therefore all encouragement should be given to people so establish similar archives in the regions.

And to those companies, like the telephone companies, who give willing support to programmes of only entertainment value, it will be a good thing if they associate their names to projects that have historical and cultural such as the one mentioned above.

How about setting up a Hall of Fame to recognise and honour the works and contributions of Ghanaians who have excelled in all the fields of human endeavour, for example?

The Goethe Institut by supporting BAPMAF has shown the way. My prayer is that others with similar resources will follow their example.

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