Musical forms of political and social expression

Following WWII, ideas of liberation and African independence arose, generating musical forms of political and social expression.

Professor John Collins notes that:

“It is only really after the Second World War with the rise of the mass CPP (Convention Peoples Party) independence movement and Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanism, compounded by Afro-centric ideas coming in from the black Americas, that Ghanaian popular artists began indigenizing their performances in a self-conscious ideological way”.

Performing groups joined Nkrumah’s struggle for independence from the mid-1940s, the Axim Trio were staging pro –independence plays such as “Nkrumah Will Never Die”; Bob Ansah was performing “We Shall Overcome” and “The Creation of Ghana”.

Such forms were national and regional, transcending divisive ethnic differences.

One of the most popular Highlife bands of this period was the Tempos.