PLAGEMAN, NATE. Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana. Indiana University Press, 2013.
Nate Plageman is Assistant Professor of History at Wake Forest University. He studied at Saint Olaf College, the University of Ghana and Indiana University. His book, Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana. This book discusses musical leisure during a time of social, political, and cultural change. He covers the history of the dance band “highlife” in Ghana during the 20th century while showing how popular music impacted and was essential to daily life. Plageman conducted many interviews in several Ghanaian towns as well as consulting government reports and documents along with Newspapers and other secondary works and even films.
For my purposes this book is a key source. This book was the initial source from which I decided to create my research project. The book covers both the social and political situations throughout the history of highlife. Highlife, in this book, is not just a style of music it is a “medium in which participants, patrons, and performers experienced personal and public transformations fundamental to their daily lives.” (Plageman, Introduction,3) From this book’s bibliography I found several sources that I plan to use for this research project.
Van der Geest, Sjaak, and Nimrod K. Asante-Darko. “The Political Meaning of Highlife Songs in Ghana”. African Studies Review 25.1 (1982): 27–35. Web...
Sjaak van der Geest is currently the Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam as well as a visiting professor at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Gulu University in Uganda. He studied Sociology and African studies at the University of Ghana. Van der Geest conducted field studies in Ghana and Cameroon about birth control, sexual relationships, the meaning of aging, concepts of dirt, hygiene, and defecation, and the use and distribution of medicines, and popular song texts. He also founded the Journal Medische Antropologie of which he was editor in chief from 1989 to 2012 and worked as assistant editor for several other medical anthropological journals. Asante Darko is currently a Senior Expert on Conflict Prevention at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa. He is a former senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs and at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He also studied at the university of Ghana and graduated in 1999. Their article is about the political meaning of Ghanaian Highlife songs. The paper resulted from the cooperation of the Asante-Darko and Van der Geest. There were more than one hundred highlife songs collected, nearly all in Twi language. The paper analyzes the meaning of the songs and the people’s reactions to them as well as giving a brief background of Highlife.
For my purposes this article will give me a more personal insight into the highlife music. It also compares the meanings of highlife songs to many other pieces of work and creates an explanation that can be grasped easily by people who are just learning about highlife music. there are multiple sets of translation with a small explanation of some of the possible meanings of each song. This gives me a place to start when looking for songs to put onto the website. I can use the lyrics and if I can figure out how to the music and make the site more interactive and interesting.
Asante-Darko, Nimrod, and Sjaak van der Geest. “Male Chauvinism: Men and Women in Ghanaian Highlife Songs.” In Female and Male in West Africa, ed. Christine Oppong, 242–55.
The authors of this article are the same as the last. This article is about the gender roles in highlife music. The data the paper is based off of comes from participant observation and collection and translation of highlife songs. It also gives a bit of history on highlife which can be compared to the other versions of the same history told in different sources and a potentially more accurate history can be grasped through the similarities in the different versions.
This article gave me insight into Akan marriage and the cultural norms that go with it. Through this it also gave me another lens through which I can analyze the meanings of highlife songs. There are translated lyrics of highlife songs and a bit of background on each that can be used in the website. This paper also gave a little information about the way highlife songs were often composed.
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/416521169/back-in-ghana-pat-thomas-gives-new-life-to-highlife
The aspect of this piece that I plan on using is the audio clip that accompanied the NPR article. The audio contains a few different clips of highlife songs from a more current artist. The article itself might be referenced as an additional piece that talks a little about the artist, Pat Thomas, who is the singer and bandleader in the audio
Pat Thomas is a Ghanaian vocalist and songwriter famed for his work in the highlife bands of Ebo Taylor and his own recordings of Afrobeat and Afro-pop. He was born in 1951 in Agona, in the Ashanti Region, to his father, a music theory instructor and his mother, a bandleader. His uncle was a well known Ghanaian guitarist, King Onyina, who was not only renowned for his own recordings, but for his work with Nat King Cole. He learned music from his uncle and in 1971, he moved to Accra to join Taylor's highlife band, the Blue Monks. In 1978 he was voted Mr. Golden Voice of Africa.
Kofi E. Agovi. “The Political Relevance of Ghanaian Highlife Songs Since 1957”. Research in African Literatures 20.2 (1989): 194–201. Web...
Kofi E Agovi is Associate Professor, Head of Language and Literature Section and
Deputy Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. He was a Deputy Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana from 1990-1991 and 1993-1997 and was a director from 1995-1996.
This paper is another view on the political meanings of highlife. I may end up using the information I gather from this to create a separate section on the website to discuss the different meanings (political social relationship inside jokes) that highlife music includes. There is a lot of historical recounting that the paper gives that may not be the most useful information for my site but it could add to the background information on the area. In the notes there is some lyrics and more information about the music and the artists that could be helpful but overall, for my uses I don’t foresee this paper being used very much.
Collins, John. “The Early History of West African Highlife Music”. Popular Music 8.3 (1989): 221–230. Web...
John Collins is a UK born Guitarist harmonica player and percussionist. His father was involved in setting up the philosophy department at the University of Ghana. He studied archaeology and sociology in Ghana at the University of Legon where he became involved with many local bands. In 1995 Collins taught African Popular Music, the history and sociology of music at the University of Ghana. He also wrote and presented the BBC’s first-ever series of radio programs on African popular music called “In The African Groove” in 1978. Today he is the acting chairman of the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, PRO for the Old Ghanaian Musicians Welfare Association, consultant for MUSIGA, patron of the Afrika Obonu music therapy drum group and consultant for a World Bank project to assist the African music industry. Collins is also a Professor in the Music Department of the University of Ghana, from where he runs) the Local Dimension highlife band that toured Europe in 2002, 2004 and 2006 and released a CD in 2003 entitled N’Yong on the French Disques Arion label.
This article gave a more detailed look into the history of highlife music. It discussed the different influences and different styles of music in the time. It talks about different artists and different types of highlife. There are some images that would be nice to have on the site as a visual aid as well as quotes from or about highlife artists. The information in the paper can be used to give a deeper understanding of the music and the research I did into the author gave me a more recent highlife group from whom I can likely find some audio clips to include into the site.
For this project I wasn’t really all that sure about where I was going to go with it. I had read over the guidelines a few times and originally I wanted to create an exhibit. In attempts to come up with an idea I talked to one of my friends who offered up the idea of doing something with music. I was intrigued with this idea and for a while tried to come up with a way to create a musical exhibit. I was unable to find a way that I could make a physical model of an exhibit and include audio like I wanted. This lead me to the website option. From there I wasn’t really sure what type of music I wanted to focus on due to not knowing much about the different genres of music.
While listening to music one day I came across a top hits chart for Africa and thought that I could use some of the information from that to start my research. This idea changed when I got the feedback from the proposal. The idea of highlife music was intriguing and it seemed like it would be easier to focus on a single style of music that seemed to be studied mostly in one area of Africa. The book that was brought up with the idea of highlife music was the start of my research. It contains a rather lengthy bibliography and I pulled from that to find other sources.
Most of the sources I currently have are articles. I’ve found myself really enjoying reading these articles and learning more about this topic. I am still looking to find another book to use in my research. I still am looking for information about more current artists and how they are involved in today’s society. I also want to find more artists and interviews with artists discussing the music. I want to get a more internal look at the music. I plan on including audio and if possible video in the website. I intend to have something that is more interactive than simply words on a paper. The main issue that I presume will arise with the creation of the website is that I have never used Weebly before and am not the most technically savvy person. I do have some friends who are in professional writing and are creating their own sites who will probably be able to help me troubleshoot any issues that arise.
At this point I feel reasonably confident in the work I’ve done and the work I have left to do. I’m excited to start putting the information together and onto the webpage.
Other Citations and sources
Images
http://www.globalgroovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/E.T.-Mensah-front.jpg
http://redmp3.su/cover/3068027-460x460/tropical-rhythm.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S9XhaQ_7hoE/maxresdefault.jpg
http://www.geocities.jp/blowbone/eknyame.jpg
https://www.discogs.com/Nana-Ampadu-And-His-African-Brothers-Int-Band-Check-Point/release/4326208
https://akwasibeats.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/alex1.jpg
timeline (used for background information)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13434226
Nate Plageman is Assistant Professor of History at Wake Forest University. He studied at Saint Olaf College, the University of Ghana and Indiana University. His book, Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana. This book discusses musical leisure during a time of social, political, and cultural change. He covers the history of the dance band “highlife” in Ghana during the 20th century while showing how popular music impacted and was essential to daily life. Plageman conducted many interviews in several Ghanaian towns as well as consulting government reports and documents along with Newspapers and other secondary works and even films.
For my purposes this book is a key source. This book was the initial source from which I decided to create my research project. The book covers both the social and political situations throughout the history of highlife. Highlife, in this book, is not just a style of music it is a “medium in which participants, patrons, and performers experienced personal and public transformations fundamental to their daily lives.” (Plageman, Introduction,3) From this book’s bibliography I found several sources that I plan to use for this research project.
Van der Geest, Sjaak, and Nimrod K. Asante-Darko. “The Political Meaning of Highlife Songs in Ghana”. African Studies Review 25.1 (1982): 27–35. Web...
Sjaak van der Geest is currently the Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam as well as a visiting professor at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Gulu University in Uganda. He studied Sociology and African studies at the University of Ghana. Van der Geest conducted field studies in Ghana and Cameroon about birth control, sexual relationships, the meaning of aging, concepts of dirt, hygiene, and defecation, and the use and distribution of medicines, and popular song texts. He also founded the Journal Medische Antropologie of which he was editor in chief from 1989 to 2012 and worked as assistant editor for several other medical anthropological journals. Asante Darko is currently a Senior Expert on Conflict Prevention at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa. He is a former senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs and at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He also studied at the university of Ghana and graduated in 1999. Their article is about the political meaning of Ghanaian Highlife songs. The paper resulted from the cooperation of the Asante-Darko and Van der Geest. There were more than one hundred highlife songs collected, nearly all in Twi language. The paper analyzes the meaning of the songs and the people’s reactions to them as well as giving a brief background of Highlife.
For my purposes this article will give me a more personal insight into the highlife music. It also compares the meanings of highlife songs to many other pieces of work and creates an explanation that can be grasped easily by people who are just learning about highlife music. there are multiple sets of translation with a small explanation of some of the possible meanings of each song. This gives me a place to start when looking for songs to put onto the website. I can use the lyrics and if I can figure out how to the music and make the site more interactive and interesting.
Asante-Darko, Nimrod, and Sjaak van der Geest. “Male Chauvinism: Men and Women in Ghanaian Highlife Songs.” In Female and Male in West Africa, ed. Christine Oppong, 242–55.
The authors of this article are the same as the last. This article is about the gender roles in highlife music. The data the paper is based off of comes from participant observation and collection and translation of highlife songs. It also gives a bit of history on highlife which can be compared to the other versions of the same history told in different sources and a potentially more accurate history can be grasped through the similarities in the different versions.
This article gave me insight into Akan marriage and the cultural norms that go with it. Through this it also gave me another lens through which I can analyze the meanings of highlife songs. There are translated lyrics of highlife songs and a bit of background on each that can be used in the website. This paper also gave a little information about the way highlife songs were often composed.
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/416521169/back-in-ghana-pat-thomas-gives-new-life-to-highlife
The aspect of this piece that I plan on using is the audio clip that accompanied the NPR article. The audio contains a few different clips of highlife songs from a more current artist. The article itself might be referenced as an additional piece that talks a little about the artist, Pat Thomas, who is the singer and bandleader in the audio
Pat Thomas is a Ghanaian vocalist and songwriter famed for his work in the highlife bands of Ebo Taylor and his own recordings of Afrobeat and Afro-pop. He was born in 1951 in Agona, in the Ashanti Region, to his father, a music theory instructor and his mother, a bandleader. His uncle was a well known Ghanaian guitarist, King Onyina, who was not only renowned for his own recordings, but for his work with Nat King Cole. He learned music from his uncle and in 1971, he moved to Accra to join Taylor's highlife band, the Blue Monks. In 1978 he was voted Mr. Golden Voice of Africa.
Kofi E. Agovi. “The Political Relevance of Ghanaian Highlife Songs Since 1957”. Research in African Literatures 20.2 (1989): 194–201. Web...
Kofi E Agovi is Associate Professor, Head of Language and Literature Section and
Deputy Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. He was a Deputy Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana from 1990-1991 and 1993-1997 and was a director from 1995-1996.
This paper is another view on the political meanings of highlife. I may end up using the information I gather from this to create a separate section on the website to discuss the different meanings (political social relationship inside jokes) that highlife music includes. There is a lot of historical recounting that the paper gives that may not be the most useful information for my site but it could add to the background information on the area. In the notes there is some lyrics and more information about the music and the artists that could be helpful but overall, for my uses I don’t foresee this paper being used very much.
Collins, John. “The Early History of West African Highlife Music”. Popular Music 8.3 (1989): 221–230. Web...
John Collins is a UK born Guitarist harmonica player and percussionist. His father was involved in setting up the philosophy department at the University of Ghana. He studied archaeology and sociology in Ghana at the University of Legon where he became involved with many local bands. In 1995 Collins taught African Popular Music, the history and sociology of music at the University of Ghana. He also wrote and presented the BBC’s first-ever series of radio programs on African popular music called “In The African Groove” in 1978. Today he is the acting chairman of the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, PRO for the Old Ghanaian Musicians Welfare Association, consultant for MUSIGA, patron of the Afrika Obonu music therapy drum group and consultant for a World Bank project to assist the African music industry. Collins is also a Professor in the Music Department of the University of Ghana, from where he runs) the Local Dimension highlife band that toured Europe in 2002, 2004 and 2006 and released a CD in 2003 entitled N’Yong on the French Disques Arion label.
This article gave a more detailed look into the history of highlife music. It discussed the different influences and different styles of music in the time. It talks about different artists and different types of highlife. There are some images that would be nice to have on the site as a visual aid as well as quotes from or about highlife artists. The information in the paper can be used to give a deeper understanding of the music and the research I did into the author gave me a more recent highlife group from whom I can likely find some audio clips to include into the site.
For this project I wasn’t really all that sure about where I was going to go with it. I had read over the guidelines a few times and originally I wanted to create an exhibit. In attempts to come up with an idea I talked to one of my friends who offered up the idea of doing something with music. I was intrigued with this idea and for a while tried to come up with a way to create a musical exhibit. I was unable to find a way that I could make a physical model of an exhibit and include audio like I wanted. This lead me to the website option. From there I wasn’t really sure what type of music I wanted to focus on due to not knowing much about the different genres of music.
While listening to music one day I came across a top hits chart for Africa and thought that I could use some of the information from that to start my research. This idea changed when I got the feedback from the proposal. The idea of highlife music was intriguing and it seemed like it would be easier to focus on a single style of music that seemed to be studied mostly in one area of Africa. The book that was brought up with the idea of highlife music was the start of my research. It contains a rather lengthy bibliography and I pulled from that to find other sources.
Most of the sources I currently have are articles. I’ve found myself really enjoying reading these articles and learning more about this topic. I am still looking to find another book to use in my research. I still am looking for information about more current artists and how they are involved in today’s society. I also want to find more artists and interviews with artists discussing the music. I want to get a more internal look at the music. I plan on including audio and if possible video in the website. I intend to have something that is more interactive than simply words on a paper. The main issue that I presume will arise with the creation of the website is that I have never used Weebly before and am not the most technically savvy person. I do have some friends who are in professional writing and are creating their own sites who will probably be able to help me troubleshoot any issues that arise.
At this point I feel reasonably confident in the work I’ve done and the work I have left to do. I’m excited to start putting the information together and onto the webpage.
Other Citations and sources
Images
http://www.globalgroovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/E.T.-Mensah-front.jpg
http://redmp3.su/cover/3068027-460x460/tropical-rhythm.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S9XhaQ_7hoE/maxresdefault.jpg
http://www.geocities.jp/blowbone/eknyame.jpg
https://www.discogs.com/Nana-Ampadu-And-His-African-Brothers-Int-Band-Check-Point/release/4326208
https://akwasibeats.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/alex1.jpg
timeline (used for background information)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13434226