My Blog

So this is my inaugural T.R.O.Y. I thought I would start writing about the influences I had growing up, and how they affected my world view. Kind of more of a peek into my head and my history.

ET Mensah, the father of Ghanaian High-Life pop music. This style grew to popularity during and after the independence movement in Ghana. Here’s a quick summary of his early life and his musical goals:

“E.T. Mensah, the undisputed King of Highlife, was one the founding fathers of African popular music. His career stretched from the early 1930s to the late 1980s, and his music reached beyond Ghana to all corners of Africa and Europe.

Emmanuel Tettey Mensah was a natural musician, whose talent was spotted at school by ‘Teacher’ Joe Lamptey. When Lamptey formed the Accra Orchestra in the early 1930s E.T. joined as a piccolo player. He soon progressed to saxophone and also learned to play organ and trumpet.

After leaving school he teamed up with his brother Yebuah and the influential jazz drummer Guy Warren [Kofi Ghanaba] in the Accra Rhythmic Orchestra. European dance music was the prevailing fashion but, during World War II, musicians picked up new developments from Black American and West Indian comrades who were stationed in the Gold Coast. There were also ex-professional European musicians with the Allied forces, and E.T. joined Sergeant Jack Leopard and his Black and White Spots.

E.T. was also studying pharmacy. In 1943 he qualified and was stationed in the Ashanti region. When he returned to Accra in 1947 he joined the original Tempos band with Joe Kelly and Guy Warren. Warren had travelled to Europe and America, playing with Afro-Cuban musicians and he returned with the latest records, including calypsos. This refreshing influence became part of post-war highlife, which was now directed to a more solidly African audience.

‘We urgently wanted an indigenous rhythm to replace the fading foreign music of waltz, rumba, etc,’ Mensah told the writer and highlife archivist, John Collins.* ‘We evolved a music relying on basic African rhythms. A criss-cross African cultural sound, so to speak. No one can really lay claim to its creation. It had always been there, entrenched in West African culture. What I did was give highlife world acceptance.” (courtesy of RetroAfrica.com)

For me, there is a clear love and resentment with ET Mensah, high life, and the older generations in Africa vs young Africa. I remember flying back to Ghana, and among the music my father playing in the house, there was always a healthy dose of ET Mensah and other high life classic pioneers.

The sound was always there, it was a constant palate which the drawing of my african heritage and reality during our vacation time existed. I was always annoyed because it was “old music” and it seemed to be everywhere. I tried to drown it out with my records tapes of WHFS and WPGC, Hip hop, New Wave, Alternative and Grunge, and eventually, House and Drum and Bass. Beyond the old sound, high life seemed to have a message of “why are the young people not doing better, ascending to their potential. We fought for liberation and excelled, why are they not doing the same, following in our footsteps”.

Now that I am older (and seemingly wiser, although the jury is still out on that) I realize a few things:

• Yes, The older generation must be respected for the blood, tears, and struggle for freedom that catapulted the African liberation movement across the continent.
• Like the civil rights movement in the US (and many rights movements throughout the Diaspora, and facing people of different races, ethnicity, even sexual orientation) the movement has changed and is always in a state of flux. With that the music and culture attached and intertwined with it will change. The soundtrack and the messages need to shift and evolve with the changing times, while referencing and respecting the past.
• The youth are always the future. they need guidance and fostering, but their language will be all their own. That language encompasses their particular time and space in history and culture.It’s the older generation’s responsibility to educate the young when they are young, and begin to step back and let them experiment and expand their horizons as they grow older. They also need to take the time to realize how things have truly changed as time shift, and understand the changes, while connecting the changes to the core older issues that plague the diaspora.
• For me personally, much of my feelings come from rift with my father; it’s so funny how similarly the break between father and son can manifest the same way as the break between the old and new in African culture.

With the development of high life and african pop hybrid styles like Hip Life and Kuduro, I feel we, as younger Africans and members of the diaspora have their own musical language to celebrate or protest, within the global community.

Looking back, and listening now. I understand the place that artist like ET Mensah have in my musical personality. The guitar, vocals, and especially the drums are something I naturally continue to tap into. I do get some comfort listing to it, I imagine the tropics when I was young.

I also know and am exploring when that musical and cultural signpost ends, and my own (hopeful) contributions to the musical landscape.