These students from Nima, Accra (VIP and FOI's hometown), from the program Nima Muhinmanchi Art, are creating and recording a song that we will share at GMGE.
To participate in the MUSIC WORKSHOP Fri. 3/23, 12 pm at Haverford, email name, year/position, school, and reason of interest to gmge323@gmail.com. Hanging out with awesome artists….pizza lunch provided….pretty sweet deal.
h.i.g.h.l.i.f.e.
highlife. ghanaian party music with hella horns and more guitars than i’ve got fingers.
a.b. crentsil looks kind of mad here but i promise he’s a super great dude. check out his track angelina —
highlife was all i listened to for the latter half of my sophomore year. this is taking me back so hard i’m almost ready to cry. imagine getting all ready for the summer with these as your jams.
j.a. adofo and the city boys band is probably my all-time fave highlife group. they are so good. go find some of their tapes and get ready to cry your eyes out as you think about yr exes and hot summer nites.
this is a real-ass protest song. fuck shit like “we shall overcome”, i wanna hear apocalyptic horns if a song is telling me to overthrow the govt. this album’s been getting some attention, it got a nice vinyl reissue last year with kind of a weird blue cover. i have it, it’s pretty dope. wish the drums were louder on this track but what can you do.
not totally sure which drugs they were on when they made this but listen to that goddamned guitar. crush up all yr drugs and make this ten minute jam last forever
so man a bunch of dudes are gonna come and some of them’ll rap over tracks like these, so be there. these tracks fucking rule. ghana rules.
Prof. Jesse Shipley on HipLife
To follow up on Helen’s post, here’s a great Afropop interview with HC Prof. Jesse Shipley on hiplife music, conducted by Siddhartha Mitter. Jesse will be moderating the GMGE panel with the artists on Thursday evening. (Where & when? Haverford’s Sharpless Auditorium, Q&A following the screening of HomeGrown: HipLife in Ghana at 7 pm.) Jesse is the director the film Living the HipLife (2007), a musical portrait of street life in urban West Africa, following the birth of HipLife music in Accra, Ghana.
“On the most basic level I would say hiplife is a combination of rap music with direct African American influences in Africa, and all the complex diasporic implications of that, and highlife music, which is popular music which itself has multiple kinds of music, but is popular music in Accra, which has been popular since the early 20th century. And hiplife really brings those two together. Though within those two kinds of musical forms, there’s multiple kinds of influences that go into hiplife music. So to say that hiplife is just those two together isn’t really recognizing the complexity of it.
Reggie Rockstone, "Godfather of HipLife Music," on his album 'Me Ka' ('I Will Say') (2000)
Hiplife!
In case you’re like me and are relatively new to the Ghanaian music scene, you’ve probably been wondering what the posters are all about that you’ve been seeing around campus. “Ghanaian hiplife” refers to the musical genre which fuses the styles of highlife and hip hop, with reggae influences. Highlife is an extremely popular music genre in Ghana. For a taste of what highlife music sounds like, check out Highlife Today, a US based Ghanaian online radio. Pictured on the posters are the members of VIP, which along with FOI are two of the main hiplife artists attending the symposium. Soulfege’s music, while belonging more to the “world music/ Afropolitan fusion” genre, also uses highlife drumbeats and rhythms.
In other news, GET PUMPED! We’re back from spring break now, which means less than TWO WEEKS until GMGE gets us all groovin’.
Attend
Attend the GMGE symposium event
– Featuring V.I.P., F.O.I., Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège, & Paapa –
Kickoff Teach-In BMC 3/21 * Screening & Panel HC 3/22 * Concert HC 3/23
– and more –
Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège Rain Down
“Love Rain Down” comes from Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège’s new album ‘AFropolitan.’ The animated musical film re-imagines the “crossroads” myth of the blues singer Robert Johnson and re-tells it to embody West African Akan culture and values. The tale goes that Johnson took his guitar to the devil at a crossroad, who tuned it and henceforth owned the singer’s talent and soul. In DNA (Derrick)’s version, an old man tells the story of a boy named Johnny, who goes to the devil at a crossroad and sings a song about love. This time, “Gyenyame” (the Adinkra symbol for reverence of God) emanates from the boy’s amulet to envelop the devil and his pit bull. Droplets fall, and love literally rains down. DNA writes on derrickashong.com that the story shows a “reverence for ancestral wisdom” and the passing of that wisdom and strength “generationally and geographically (from Africa to America and beyond).”
Their song “Sweet” was shot with a team of artists and youth activists from Boston and Accra working together.
DNA (Derrick) speaks for Arts Action Fund: “What we need to do as Americans who are for the arts is to shift our positioning, and not to present ourselves as people who are in need of help from the broader society. And as you go out to recruit these million members, not to tell them that we need your support, but that our nation needs what we are offering.”
ANNOUNCING…Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège
ANNOUNCING… the group Derrick Ashong & Soulfège will be participating in GMGE!!!
Their sound is like “Bob Marley meets The Fugees on a street corner in West Africa.” Their style synthesizes an eclectic blend of hip hop, highlife, reggae, funk, and world beat, which they dub ‘World music/AFropolitan fusion.’
Soulfège was formed by Derrick N. Ashong and Jonathan Gramling when they were students at Harvard (Derrick is from Ghana). Derrick garnered a publicity boost when an unplanned street interview during Obama’s election campaign turned him into a “YouTube phenom” (read about it in the New York Times). He hosts a TV show on Al Jazeera English. The group has appeared for the likes of Obama, Oprah and Bill Clinton.
Take advantage of of their Million Free Download campaign and cop their latest album ‘AFropolitan’ here. More on their Facebook.
Jonathan Gramling, left, and Derrick Ashong, who met and formed Soulfège while students at Harvard
Today is the birthday of Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, director and producer of ‘HomeGrown: HipLife in Ghana,’ which we’ll be screening March 22 in Haverford’s Sharpless Auditorium, at 7 pm before the GMGE panel. Happy birthday, Eli!
It’s time to get pumped.excited.psyched,elated,ecsatic, you get my drift :)
Hi Hello Hey Whatsup 🙂
The show is in 15 days *doing the azonto in my empty room* can’t wait to see all your yummy faces doing the azonto with me and learning a little sumin sumin about Ghanaian music and Ghana as a whole! It’s going to be sooooooooo goooooooooooood especially with all you guys there so I hope calendars are marked, schedules are cleared, dance moves are on point and most of all your beautiful self is present!
Friday 23rd March, 2012/Founders/10pm
Love
Dede
gmge323 