MUS 238 Ghanaian Popular Music
The course examines the broad Ghanaian 'popular' music-making phenomena as conceptualized within the frame of "Highlife music." What it seems to be (as defined by those who play and study it), where it came from, and how its musical features manifest cultural and historical aspects of the lives of the people who created it will be explored. It will examine the socio-cultural development of the various styles of highlife music. Concurrently, it investigates "highlife" as understood and (re)imagined by Ghanaians, embodying qualities of virtuosity, exoticism, and "natural" expressivity. Our exploration will range from the relationships between Ghanaian and West African music research to the marketing of highlife music today, from ethnographic approaches to Ghanaian performance to the philosophical and ethical considerations involved in studying it. Throughout the course, we will consider how Ghanaian 'popular' musicians and related groups have created a range of sound worlds under considerable social, political, and commercial pressure. As part of the inquiry, we will take preliminary measures to learn linguistic expressions in some Ghanaian languages to help students translate and analyze song texts. Additional readings and discussions will be engaged on the influence of African traditional and imported Western and Black Diasporic performance norms.
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