About of Ghana's Modern Musical History

Ghana music, as it is obvious, is a traditional type of music, comes from the region of Ghana, Africa.The most famous type of Ghana music is Highlife which was preferred to others for a lot of decades until the Hiplife and other genders of Ghana music were introduced to the audience.

Ghana music is divided into two parts because of the language is spoken in every region. There is the traditional Ghana music by the Ghanaians and Mande speaking groups who live on the north side of the country and the Ghanaians Kwa speaking groups in the south coastal areas as Akan. There are a lot of differences between these two parts of Ghana music. The northern part can be characterized as a mix of stringed instruments such as the kologo jute, flutes and horns and voice. Voice is the most important part of this type of Ghanaian music. The music of the cost areas is so much different. There are drums and bells used and the sound is more polyrhythmic. The most famous coast-area type Ghanaian music is the kete. There was a simultaneous development of the Pan-Ghanaian traditional music but in the middle of the 20th century, the development of Ghanaian pop music was massive. The independence of Ghana in 1957 was the beginning of this development After the independence, the government started encouraging all new types of folk music but highlife style was still on the top. By the beginning of the 1970s though, traditional highlife music was overtaken rock and pop style bands. 

ln 1971 a music festival took place in Accra, the famous Soul to Soul music festival. There, a lot of music legends played, such as Tina Turner and Carlos Santana.The reflection of this festival was catalytic because new bands arose in Ghana such as the City Brothers.ln the 1980s, the United Kingdom was about to experience a massive increase in the Ghanaian music because there was a huge move there.The band called Hi-Life International was probably the most influential band of this period. ln the late 90s, a new type of Ghana music was about to increase, hiplife.Reggie Rockstone, the creator of hiplife mixed the sounds of traditional Ghanaian music and hip hop. it was actually Ghanaian local musicians singing hip hop in their dialect. 

ln nowadays there is an annual celebration of Ghana music, the Ghana music awards, which were established in 2000.The first Ghana awards took place in the National Theatre of Ghana. The winners are chosen by all the regions of Ghana, through the radio station DJs, the night club DJs and some of the most important distributors of music.The categories include awards for the artist of the year, the song of the year, the best album of the year, the producer of the year, the most famous African artist of the year, the best video and other.The Ghana Awards trophy has been changed over the years for several times and its current form includes a red gold and green compact disc which is a music symbol.The colors chosen are the national colors of Ghana.The artist with the most wins over the Ghana Award is Sarkodie with 18 wins, while he is the artist who is most nominated for an award, with 43 nominations.