Popular Music in West Africa

Author(s): Edna M. Smith

Source: African Music, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1962), pp. 11-17
Published by: International Library of African Music
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30250154
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 POPULAR MUSIC OF WEST AFRICA 11

POPULAR MUSIC IN WEST AFRICA

by

EDNA M. SMITH

The recreational music of the West African people is more subject to ch

any other type of music, for it is not ceremonially or socially bound to tribal
Innovations and alterations in this music are not generally prohibited by trad
it has been changed by outside influences, individuals within the society, and
with other societies. This music is transient: the forms and styles may persis
time and then disappear when new forms are introduced. Konkomba, A
Kolomashie, recreational music that was popular a short time ago, are
memory.
The new intertribal recreational music today is a synthesis of Western
music. It is generally ballroom-inspired. The growth and popularity of the
and dance hall in West Africa have created a demand for suitable music for
first the musicians copied Western music; the quick step and waltz. Since th
these early establishments were mainly Europeans, the dance bands play
enjoyment the European music of the day. When the Africans began to widen
recreational activities and patronize these clubs, a demand was created for a
musical offering. African-derived music, such as jazz, calypso, and Lat
music, made its appearance along with the Western-influenced indigenous m
highlife, Afro-calypso, Abalabi, and Konkomba, all represent this comprom
African traditional forms and Western music.

Forms of Popular Music

The Highlife. The most popular music of this type is the highlife. The origin of the
highlife has been the subject of much discussion. The Daily Graphic in Accra recently
ran a contest on the subject in the spring of 1960. Widely speculative answers were
received which placed the origin of the highlife as far away as Sierre Leone and Nigeria.
Most of the Ghana musicologists, however, agree that the konkomba band was a
forerunner of this music. These singing bands were accompanied by guitars and percus-
sion instruments. Lang states that the highlife is konkomba singing which has been
instrumentalized'. Nketia, on the other hand, believes that the highlife originates as
street music. The players and dancers originally moved from one side of the street to the
other, dancing individually2.
It is interesting to note that most of the observers give a tribal origin for the
highlife. Actually, it is intertribal. Although there are resemblances to the music of some
of the peop e in Ghana, the music is so different from the indigenous music that it can be
labelled a new type of folk music.
The highlife, primarily vocal music, is sung in the various vernaculars. There are
highlife songs in Ewe, Twi, Fanti, Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, and many other West African
tongues. Occasionally can be found a highlife in English. The subjects of these songs
are similar to those of the traditional songs. They are love songs, songs about death,
songs of praise and insult, and songs describing an event or a personage.
The melody line is generally simple with little use made of accidentals. Repeated
notes are often used, with the second or third note longer than the first. There is some
syncopation, usually of the first beat of the melody. The song Lai Nomo illustrates some
of the characteristics of the highlife.

'Ian g "Jazz Comes Home to Africa", West Africa Revifw, December, 1956, XVII, No. 351
'1. H. N'i- "Modem Trends in Ghana Music", VAricas Mwsi, 1, No. 4 (1954), p. 13.

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12 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCIETY JOURNAL

Example 1.

The form most widely used is the binary form. Part "A" is usually sung by the solo
voice and then repeated by the chorus and "B" is treated in a similar manner. There
are some variations of the above; for example, "A" may be repeated twice to each "B"
section or they may alternate with an instrumental solo which uses the material of either
"A" or "B".
There is some use of harmony. The chorus may sing in thirds or sixths. The
instruments, which are used in the call and response style of African music, may also use
these simple harmonies with the emphasis on parallel thirds. At times, as in the indigenous
music, the accompanying part is played above the melody part. While there also is some
use of unison playing, the playing in thirds is more usual.
The rhythm of the highlife is not as complicated as that of the traditional music. The
music is usually in common time, with very little use made of cross rhythms. The slow
triplets and fast triplets are still used.

Example 2.
GONG *

BASS I

The gong beat o

different. It is u
its similarity to
into the indigeno

Example 3.

HIGHLIFE GONG

ADOWA GONG 4 --- ----

The slow highlife is somewhat different. To differentiate it from th

is often called blues, to describe the tempo. The content of the songs c
as "blues" for the most popular theme is lost love.
The rhythm may vary from 6/8 time to 4/4 time or be a combinatio

Example 4.
HARACAS

GONG I 7 -

TRAPS -L2--l

As has been noted above, highlife has spread throughout West

more important, the countries that have adopted the highlife fo

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 POPULAR MUSIC OF WEST AFRICA 13

highlife specialists. They compose their own music, copy

tradition as well as the Ghana highlife form.

An exception, of course, is the former French colonies, w

recreational Western-influenced music. In some countries there are new intertribal
forms in addition to the highlife; for example, the Abalabi in Nigeria and the Agbad!a
in Ghana and Togoland are being danced throughout their respective countries.

The future of the highlife depends on its growth, its adaptation in new countries,
and how deeply it is rooted in the home country, Ghana. The development of the high-
life depends on the development of the popular town bands which spread the music. By
travelling from town to town in playing engagements, they reach a larger audience than
their rural counterpart. They can thus popularize their own highlife compositions.

The brass bands and guitar bands in the villages also play the highlife. This highlife
is slightly different from that of the town bands for it more closely resembles indigenous
music. The indigenous instruments may also be used for performance. In a small village
near Po in Upper Volta, highlife is played by the drum ensemble, and it has also been
played on the xylophone. On the other hand, the highlife in the towns has been influenced
by the Western music; the band's repertoire usually includes the Western dances. The
town highlife is also intertribal since the bands are usually composed of members from
various tribes and the resulting music is a product of all their experiences.

The dance bands have also attempted to create calypso, rhumba, samba, cha cha cha,
jive, and similar dance forms. They have failed, for the most part, to copy them. What
they have succeeded in doing is to create new forms which incorporate the new idioms
into the music.

The Afro-Calypso. Based on the West Indian calypso, Afro-calypso is performed in

most of the countries of West Africa. Ali Chandi, the self-styled West African "calypso
king", and George Brown, the "young tiger", are two of the outstanding performers
in this style.

On the whole, there is no clear-cut distinction between Afro-calypso and highlife-

The rhythmic effect is similar. The omission of the basic calypso beat and the addition of
highlife rhythms cause some confusion in identification. In addition, the calypso form is
modified, for the words in highlife are generally more repetitive than in calypso. The
following song has a first line which is repeated twelve times during the song.

Early Sunday morning I'm going to take you back

to your mother
Early Sunday morning I'm going to take you back
to your mother
Early Sunday morning I'm going to take you back
to your mother
You don't savey nothing, going to take you back
to your mother.

The instruments are also used in a different manner. In the calypso there is an
instrumental obligato as well as a simple rhythmical instrumental accompaniment. The
instruments in West African calypso are used solely in harmony or as a rhythmic
accompaniment.

The content of the songs is similar to the calypso. The majority of the songs concern
the relationship between man and woman, as in the selection.

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14 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCIETY JOURNAL

Example 5.

Day by day night by night day by day

r''H L'-+r .I
night by night if you aaot Pe.l +_n gial send hera.o to setool whenlM

VA" 9- !+ +J,'+ ++++ ,2 " +"::+:--

free from the school days swhat you think she gonno do othing but a shoe no>h;o9g but

shoe nothing buta abt r - e - "a go-I nothing but a shoe nothing buto

shoe rvoting t ha shoe "k'ro 9s.g-

The other Latin American musical forms also bear a slight

originals. The Afro-samba is rhythmically, melodically, and har
highlife. The only variation is in the tempo, which is slightly f
musicians have succeeded in copying the rhumba and cha cha
melodic use is different from the original.

West African Jazz.

West African jazz can be divided into two kinds: music copie
the indigenous type of jazz. The guitar bands have experime
bears a marked resemblance to South African jazz. The guitar rh
of the music. The presence of this rhythm and the sharp punct
are similar to South African jazz.
Example 6.

eJ_>_YJ N P

The other type of jazz played by the dance bands is similar to American jazz.
Unfortunately, these musicians have not been exposed to modern jazz. The radio
programmes do not feature the music of these jazz bands so they have learned only the
old styles. For example, the drummers have copied the incorrect cymbal beat of the
early White drummers shown in the following notation. This fault has been corrected in
the latter White bands.

Example 7.
Correct cymbal pattern.

Incorrect.

The music played by the jazz musicians in West Africa shows their slight
acquaintance with jazz. Jazz has a firm harmonic basis. Even when musicians create new
chords to replace the old, the new ones are not played simultaneously. The solo
instrumentalist listens to the new chord change and changes accordingly.
The dance band musicians in West Africa play lineally. In the traditional music they

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 POPULAR MUSIC OF WEST AFRICA 15.

harmonized in parallel thirds against the melody. In jazz the thirds will n
The musician must listen to the chordal structure in order to improvise
is difficult for the West African musician since it is not a part of his musica
There is another problem. The piano is seldom used in these combina
partly due to the fact that there are still comparatively few pianos in W
the bands depend on the guitarists to provide the chord structure. Unable
knowing only a few chords, the guitarists usually play whatever sounds c
Their knowledge of chords may be limited to the I, IV, and V chords of
over, they do not know the minor chords. Even in the better bands, th
major chords in minor selections.
The inadequacies of the guitarists causes the bands to sound worse than
are. Even if the trumpet or tenor saxophonist had a "good ear", it would
to execute a well-improvised solo or play the correct harmony against s
result, the playing of jazz and European music is of a low standard.
Popular Bands in West Africa.
The two types of bands found in this area are the dance band an
guitar band. Both have organizational similarities. For the most part they
apprenticeship. There is no set salary: individuals are paid a percenta
contract.

The Guitar Band.

The guitar band is the oldest form of band in West Africa. The composition
bands may vary from a single guitar and drums to two guitars, one or t
instruments, and accompanying membranophones and idiophones. They conta
singers (two tenors and one bass, one of whom is the guitarist and the le
percussion group.
They organize their musical selections in a similar manner. There is a common
position for the guitar solo and a common way of ending, a common way of arranging
singers, and a common way of forming chords. There are, however, a few outstanding
bands with distinctive styles.
E. K.'s ban is one of these. The leader, E. K. Nyame, is self-taught. While he was
learning his trade, he played with a band after school. In 1953 he was asked to represent
the Ghana musicians by accompanying the Prime Minister to Liberia. After this trip he
was finally able to become a professional and concentrate entirely on music.
This is a typical picture of the West African musician: self-taught, working at a
trade with music as an avocation. It is no wonder that the musical standards in the area
are low.

The Dance Band.

Most of the dance bands are small, consisting of a rhythm section (guitar, bass,
drums, conga, and bongo), three reeds, two altos and a tenor, with the players doubling
on the clarinet or occasionally a wood flute, a brass section containing one or two
trumpets and maybe a trombone. The leader generally doubles on two or more
instruments, which gives some instrumental variety. Some groups are smaller. One such
group in Abidjan had only one melody instrument, a trumpet, and that musician
doubled as a bartender, so for the most part the band played only vocal music accom-
panied by drumming.
There are a few larger bands. Saka Acquaye, the leader of the African Tones, has
experimented with using five reeds (no baritone sax), seven brass plus the rhythm
section, in order to get away from the "rubber stamp bands" of the area. He states that
all the combinations here use the same instrumentation, which means that there is no
variety3.
Before 1954 the majority of the musicians in this area were working in the day time

SSaka Acquaye, in a talk at the University College of Ghana, January 2, 1961.

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16 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCIETY JOURNAL

and playing at night or on the weekends. Today the picture has changed only
There are some professional bands, such as those of E. T. Mensah, Victo
Broadway Band, Modernaires, but most bands are made up of amateurs. The m
of the bands of King Bruce and Joe Kelly have day jobs. This division of inter
caused these musicians to be apathetic towards improvement of their skills in
music.

One reason for the apparent lack of interest is the restrictive musical
comparatively low musical standards of the audiences. Audiences in West Afri
trained to listen to music. Their tribal training taught them to be participants.
in the schools, with its emphasis on church vocal music, did little to enl
appreciative repertoire. So, in the absence of a tradition of listening, the peop
band performance solely on their reaction to the rhythm or the words. Highlif
cha cha cha, rock and roll, or music that is rhythmically interesting, is popul
the waltz, quick step, etc., are tolerated and appreciated by only a minority. T
band's system of apprenticeship also tends to create low standards, The leader
unable to train the new members long enough for them to learn how to
instrument. In fact, a new member may travel with the band as a valet or play
idiophones until he learns enough to participate in the playing. New mem
perform with the band before they are ready. One leader in Accra remarked th
trained his new band for a "long time" and was going to allow them to perfor
next dance. The long time was six months.
Both the guitar bands and the dance bands are intertribal. In Liberia the ban
Duco Palace includes Ghana musicians; Victor Alaya's band includes Yoru
Hausa and many other tribes. E. K.'s band includes Kwabus, Ashantis, Fan
Hausas, and Gas.
The musicians now join bands for financial rather than tribal reasons.
that offers the most attractive financial reward get the best people. Most of the
cooperatives, and the salary of the musician depends on the money obtained. T
holdover from the traditional praise bands, who divided the money that they r
Some of the bands try to incorporate indigenous techniques into their mu
West African Rhythm Brothers, formed in 1946, is one such organizations. The
is selected from among the indigenous instrumentalists. They are then t
Western instruments. This enables the band to use both Western and in
instruments as well as musical ideas.
Some of the dance band musicians are aware of their inadequacies and would like to
improve but they are hampered in two ways. They do not hear enough music by dance
bands outside West Africa; and there are no musicians in West Africa of a sufficiently
high calibre to be a source of inspiration to the others. Until they become familiar with
the wide dance band repertoire as well as with good performers on their instruments,
these musicians will not improve their own techniques.
They also face problems arising out of the incompatibility of some features of
African and Western music. The problem of thinking vertically instead of lineally in
improvisation has already been mentioned. The nature of the European instruments
also poses a problem. They are not suitable for expressing the shades and nuances of
African music. For example, the drop or the lowering of a tone at the end of a note can
be partially expressed on some European instruments, especially the brass. But the smear
which is the jazz equivalent of this drop is not exactly the same. The smear is played in a
dimenuendo, whereas the African drop may or not be played in that manner.
Another problem arises from the freedom of expression that prevails in African
music. Although there are certain structual restrictions, some of the instrumentalists are
allowed to improvise at will. This, however, is impossible in both Western and African-

Anon. "'West African Roundabout", West African Review, Volume 23, Number 302, November 1952.

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 POPULAR MUSIC OF WEST AFRICA 17

derived music. Although improvisation is permissible, w

other musicians must play accompanying parts or the selec
There is also a tonal problem. Tone production in
according to the tribe. But on the whole most of the da
breathy tone. Whenever a vibrato is used it is so wide th
result of the. varying traditions of desirable tone quality a
The low reading skills of these musicians creates a furt
"they can spell". Since they have little facility at readin
must be limited to what they can hear on the radio. H
these songs incorrectly, and so far as harmony is concer
also incorrect. Sometimes the melody is also copied incor
have two different conceptions of how the melody should
The fc:w European bands in the area are usually engage
for jobs in private clubs. They cater to the tastes of the E
lation. On arrival in West Africa they may add to th
instrumentalists, that is, Bongo players.
The future of popular music in West Africa depends l
dance band and guitar band musicians, for these mus
function. Besides playing in the bands, they also compose
In addition, they are the teachers of a large part of the
able to improve their techniques of playing, composition
also improve, and the new forms will become firmly ro
music will wither away and be replaced by musical shoots
are in the former French colonies.

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