Palm wine music is a genre of heritage passed down to us by our ancestors. And it is recommended we play it in every public sphere to galvanize support for the need to ensure a sense of brotherhood so we can also pass it over to progeny.
Today, many of our young folks in society have virtually drifted from Palm wine music. But any time we listen to our grand father play the charming rhythms of the music on his guitar with pride, it sends goose pimples down our spines and fills us with a sense of pride.
Till date, I am not any bothered about, or moved by the derisions of my contemporaries about my unrepentant loyalty to Palm wine music. And I have grown to love it, and play it ceaselessly than any other music because it reminds me of the great and sweet memories of the glorious past.
Palm wine music is held in high esteem in my family because of the great benefits it offered to three generations in my heritage; and it continues to draw passion from succeeding generations in my blood line.
My great grandfather got his wife because of his charming personality as lead singer of a distinguished Palm wine music band. My grandfather grabbed the queen of his heart due to his excellence as a renowned guitarist of a Palm wine music band; so my father also got my mother 44 years ago, due to his seductive character as a combo drummer in a popular Palm wine music band.
Today, my grand father always implores we the young ones to come home on festive seasons as tradition demands, to cast our nets wide on occasions where Palm wine music is played in the public sphere, as a family tradition to catch the love birds of our hearts.
Palm wine music is a medium through which great events of Africa were recorded and transferred to succeeding generations. It recounts to us the heroic deeds of our ancestors, how Yaa Asantewa, a woman with the heart of a hero, rallied round men to fight against British domination.
Palm wine music is also a medium through which we got to know of the heroic victory of our Anlo ancestors over the Danes in the famous Sagbadre war along the coastal belts of the Gold Coast; and a vehicle that drives us down memory lane, about the achievements of our African ancestors.
My grand father is a veteran of the Second World War .And his life time affair with Palm wine music is the medium with which he expresses the horrors of war, as well as the glorious memories of the gallantry of some of the African soldiers who fought in the war along side their European counterparts.
And he has his own compositions of the great accounts of the war in Burma, how the war exposed the true nature and the frailty of the White man, and how the myth surrounding the so-called superiority of the White race over the Black race was broken by the bravery and the military intelligence of African soldiers.
He has his favourite composition about the heroism of African soldiers in the war, how some African soldiers slept with the wives of some of their stupid counterparts as a sign of bravery; as well as the military excellence of Seth Anthony, a Gold Coast soldier that made him a commander over a platoon of white soldiers.
Palm wine music conveys the temerity of our heroes against imperialism. And my grand father has all the compositions that recount the heroic deeds of Kwame Nkrumah, a national hero that broke the back of White supremacy in the Gold Coast.
But sometimes, he shakes his head and weeps, when he plays memorable songs that remind him of the overthrow of Nkrumah, the man he adores and calls the show boy of Gold Coast politics. And he does so with passion and a sense of pride.
Palm wine music also reminds us of some of the sordid events that broke the heart of Africa. It reminds us of the down fall of Lumumba in the hands of Mobutu and Kassavubu, how the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was truncated; and the death of several freedom fighters of the African liberation struggle.
Today, Palm wine music is gradually losing its place in the history of Ghana and Africa, and has been taken over by rat-catching noises that defile the sanctity of the African tradition and culture. But to those of us who understand the need for the music, we salute the living legends such as Koo Nimoh of Ghana, SE Rogie of Sierra Leone, Salif Keita of Mali, and Fela Kuti of Nigeria for holding the fort for Palm wine music.
By Elinam Amevor |
