By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Esq
Without mincing words, I am in agreement with the masses of people that are of the popular opinion that Nana Ampadu is the GOAT, at least in Ghana, if not in Africa.
Of course, we have those praising murderers and dictators and life presidents and ingrates and those that imprisoned citizens without trial. But if you harbor a GOAT which many regard as a rogue, then understand that your work of persuasion is well cut out for you. Nobody can allege any misconduct against Nana Ampadu, and therein lies his supervening greatness as a citizen genius. Nana Ampadu triggers a unanimity of opinion as regards his music, philosophy, and character. And nobody can entertain any doubt about him.
His music transcends the time of independence into the present time, expressing Ghanaian philosophy in ways hitherto unparalleled. He spoke about respect, love, hard work, unity, peace and nationhood and leadership and life. In short, his music fits into the scheme of the national ethos and mores, and mood. And so his stature as a genius is national, and even international.
He sang a lot about animals to reflect human folly and foibles and was in sync with the political messages couched in the animal kingdom (Mmoadoma kingdom). Through this genre, he made fun of Ghanaian politics and politicians while detached and distanced from all the threats and dangers.
He also sang about love in a realistic fashion, exposing its challenges and disappointments with raw emotions. Sometimes, he was too harsh on our women; but was always realistic, balancing his skepticism with songs in praise of them, just like a clever lover boy.
He also sang about human friendship and good neighborliness, warning of character flaws like envy and jealousy and greed and its concomitant consequences. He also sang about the immediacy and inevitability of death, the grief appertaining and the hope for regeneration and healing. ……. In short, Nana Ampadu covered every aspect of the important musical themes of the country. And gave a solid and lasting foundation to a genre of music that also propounded a rich tapestry of philosophy and commonsense.
He was the one that hastened the development of highlife from the genre of ET Mensah to the contemporary times, joining more instrumentality and acoustics to reflect the expanding sound engineering of the times. He was also versatile in his rhythmic approach. His rhythm and beat evolved with the times, beginning with light rhythms and few instruments of the times into syncopated one with heavy metal and heavy base line. As the choice of instruments evolved, so did his choice of acoustics. He quickly adopted the piano into his musical genre at a very early stage, and gave prominence to it in the solo mode. The pianist always had a space in solo performance in the bosom of Nana Ampadu’s music. His baseline became more pronounced with more acoustic technology within the sound context, preceding the reggae era of the Rastafarians.
One peculiar musical approach which he engineered at the onset was the lyrical refrain of the all-male backing voice, successfully pioneered by Agya Osae. People often fail to notice that most songs by Nana Ampadu is ably supported by the background refrains led by Agya Osae. “Agatha” provides a good example of this; as well as “Getty”. Here. The music became more fun with the background refrains and ad-lipping by Agya Osae. And it is to the credit of Nana Ampadu that he allowed this playful background to enhance the joy of his music.
In the end, his music was a successful blend of the western and local instrumentality, with the castanet and traditional drums compounding with the western instruments to give it a peculiar verve of its own. After all, that is what highlife is all about from the very beginning.
But he was also critical of the fast pace of the musical transformation into purely western sound engineering; and the abandonment of traditional musical instrumentation as maintained in the original highlife format. And that might have been his own undoing in the latter part of his life. For as Kwadwo Antwi and Daddy Lumba embraced this modern form and created hits, Nana Ampadu was quite critical, foregrounding the eternal battle between the arts and the creative genius. Again, he himself also acknowledged that his own aggressive fight to redeem his copyright rewards undercut the popularity of his music in the late seventies. Finally, his dabbling in politics and his religious bent as a preacher left some misgivings in his fan base.
All this notwithstanding, Nana Ampadu is an institution in his own right, in the ranks of pioneers like Ephraim Amo and Philip Gbeho and all these other national heroes. His work ought to permeate the academic environment, not only in the area of Ghanaian highlife music, but also in philosophy, oral literature, sociology, education, linguistics and the performing arts. In this respect, a department ought to be established to study his style of music, his thematic preoccupation, his homeostatic view of the society as well as his deep insight into the economic challenges of our time (As expressed in “Obra”) . Nana Ampadu’s wisdom was unrivalled, and he maintained an enlightened lucidity and equanimity throughout his life which this country will do well to study for its own development.
When viewed within the expanse of his influence and impact on the national ethos and mores, his influence on the national project and his personal contributions to wisdom and thoughts, his sheer genius, and giant personality, I am happy to declare him as the GGOAT-Ghana’s greatest of all times.
Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Esq.
lawyersarfo@yahoo.com
