-
Introduction: The Historical Importance of Urban Ghana’s Saturday Nights
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 ShortlyafterthesunsetonMarch2,1957,menandwomenthroughoutthe West African colony of the Gold Coast changed into a set of fashionable clothes, left their homes, and met up with their friends for an evening out on the town. After all, it was a Saturday night. At roughly eight o’ clock, cities throughout the colony came alive with the sounds of dance band highlife, the urban Gold Coast’s most prominent form of popular music. For the next five to six hours, eager crowds made their way to a nearby nightclub, bar, hotel, or community center, where they claimed a table, purchasedrefreshments,andreveledinthesoundsofoneoftheirfavorite dance bands. Patrons of various ages, occupations, and ethnicities spent parts of the evening engrossed in conversation or relaxing with a drink in hand, but nearly everyone spent as much time as possible on the dance floor, where they moved, either alone or with a partner, to the band’s unique blend of local rhythms, jazz influences, ballroom standards, and calypso flair. Yet this was no ordinary Saturday night. In a few short days, at midnight on March 6, the Gold Coast would become Ghana, sub-Saharan Africa’s first European colony to gain political sovereignty and national independence.Sincethiswasthelastweekendeveningbeforethatmonumentaltransfer ,theassembledaudienceswereparticularlylargeandespecially jubilant. For those lucky enough to get inside their venue of choice, the palpable energy made it easy to forget that tables were hard to come Introduction: The Historical Significance of Urban Ghana’s Saturday Nights Everybody likes Saturday night, at least here in Ghana. —Daily Graphic, January 31, 1959 There used to be a song, “Everybody Likes Saturday Night.” It was one of the very early highlife songs. In fact, it was one of the very popular songs of the time. —Kwadwo Donkoh, September 16, 2005 2 Highlife Satur day Night by or that the dance floor was a bit too crowded to really showcase one’s well-rehearsed moves. As nightclubs filled to capacity and overwhelmed doormen brought admission queues to a standstill, the fanfare spilled out intothestreet,whereopportunisticmenandwomenoutlinedamakeshift dance floor, found a partner, and frolicked to their satisfaction. Throughout the Gold Coast, from Accra to Cape Coast, Takoradi to Tamale, and Keta to Kumasi, it was a Saturday night to remember (see Figure 0.1).1 Fifty years later, the music, activities, and memories of that Saturday night experienced a rebirth of sorts. In March 2007, Ghanaians gathered together to commemorate their fiftieth anniversary of national independence . Throughout the month, the government sponsored an impressive lineupofevents,includinglectures,festivals,televisionspecials,sporting events, parades, fashion shows, and musical concerts, which memorialized the country’s inception, showcased past and present achievements, and championed the broader arena of “African excellence.” And though dance band highlife had nearly disappeared from Ghana’s contemporary musical scene, the scheduled fanfare catapulted the style back into a momentary position of prominence. Highlife made notable appearances in Figure 0.1. Men and women enjoy a Saturday night of music and dancing at the Weekend-in-Havana nightclub, Accra, 1957. Photo courtesy of Ghana Information Services Department Photograph Library. [18.232.188.122] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:55 GMT) 3 Introduction theanniversary’smonth-longNationalBrassBandCompetition,theMiss Ghana@50 GalaBall, the President’s Show (an entertainment galaheldat the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum), and the “From Highlife to Hiplife” concert, a twelve-hour extravaganza that celebrated the nation’s musical heritage and honored its most prominent artists. For those too young to remember the Saturday nights of old, the music’s resurgence may have seemed somewhat overstated, dramatically nostalgic, or even a bit odd. But few seemed to question the celebrations’ patriotic insistence that highlife was an authentically Ghanaian music that had allowed earlier generations to set aside their differences, foster a cooperative spirit, and pull together as a nation.2 This book, like the 2007 anniversary celebrations, engages the history ,significance,andmeaningofdancebandhighlifeand,toasignificant extent,thebroaderrealmofGhanaianpopularmusic.Highlifewasavital part of urban life from 1890 to 1970—the time frame that witnessed the music’semergenceandgradualdecline—anditdeservesinclusionwithin thestandardnarrativeofGhana’srecentpast.Atthesametime,themusic cannot be simply inserted into a nationalist storyline that emphasizes countrywide cooperation and collective harmony. Throughout the colonial and immediate postcolonial periods, highlife was a highly contested realm. While many men and women used the music as a means to relax, have fun, and enjoy an evening out on the town, many others employed it to mediate relationships, articulate understandings of similarity and difference, and generate consensus and conflict with those around them. LikeitspopularmusicalcounterpartsinotherpartsofAfrica,highlifewas a medium in which participants, patrons, and performers experienced personal and public transformations fundamental to their daily...