Culture is the way of life of a particular group of people. It has elements such beliefs, dressing, food, language, music and so forth. Cultural diversity is applicable under all the elements of culture except music. Music is an integral element which embodies other elements like dressing, dance and language. When cultural diversity is applied to music, one might lose those significant elements mentioned above which are engulfed in music.
Music is incomplete without a voice. The voice is to communicate a message to the listener and the listener is able to decode the message through a language. As far as language is the code, it’s advisable to used a code (language) which is familiar to both the singer and the listener. This will help the singer to easily send his message and the listener too will be able to understand the message with less difficulty.
We as Northern Ghana gospel singers/musicians seem to losing our route since the inception modern instruments.
We have not added much of our culture to our music so it’s difficult for our people to appreciate our music.
It’s not just about wearing the smock for the music video but it goes beyond that. Even in our churches, we don’t sing our indigenous songs because we don’t want to sound the way those songs sound. I challenge you today;THAT’S WHO WE ARE.
Sorry for me to mention this. Sarkodie can never sound better that Jay-Z in pop music because Ghana is not the origin of pop music. Fancy Gadam wouldn’t be able to sing typical Ghanaian highlife music better than Akwaboah because typical Ghanaian highlife originated from Southern Ghana. Am not been judgemental; it’s good to listen to other musicians but trying to sound like them is a scam. Let’s just know that there’s no Northerner who will be able to sing in English better than Tasha Cobbs and no Northern will sing in Twi better than the Joe Mettles and the Diana Hamiltons.
Reminder: King Ayisoba and Wiyaala have had significant recognition not because of English but because of their culture they potray in their songs.
We need to identify scales, chords and notes that will give our music it’s identity.
The soundtrack of a Chinese movie has their culture in it. Even the sound of the instruments in the soundtrack will announce to a person at a distance that it’s a Chinese movie. Let’s not forget of the Ghanaian Pentecostal style of play with the walking bass guitar. It also has its unique identity.
Let’s not try to copy and sound like the whites or the Ashantis but work to put much of our culture into our songs so that our people can appreciate our songs first even before the outside world for MUSIC IS CULTURAL!
Article by Natty Keyz