Highlife and <i>Fontomfrom</i>

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Other Title
  • ハイライフとフォントムフロム
  • ハイライフとフォントムフロム--ンクルマの文化政策とガーナ宮廷音楽の変容
  • ハイライフ ト フォントムフロム ンクルマ ノ ブンカ セイサク ト ガーナ キュウテイ オンガク ノ ヘンヨウ
  • Highlife and Fontomfrom
  • Nkrumah's Cultural Policy and the Change of Court Music in Ghana
  • ンクルマの文化政策とガーナ宮廷音楽の変容

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The process of innovation in traditional genres of music with popular musical idioms involves various socio-political factors, such as an upsurge of developmental ideology, cultural policy by political authorities, and change of the populace's perceptions. In postcolonial Africa, the rehabilitation of traditional values of music, changes in the educational system, and the development of mass media also played an important role in this transformative process of tradition.<br>In the 1970s, the calypso rhythm pattern of “highlife”, Ghanaian popular music, was introduced into the traditional royal drum ensemble, fontomfrom, among the Fante of southern Ghana by an individual educated in African and Western music. It was spread through cultural festivals to promote musical traditions, and was developed by newly-formed performing groups who gave staged performances to contribute to the creation of a sense of national identity. It has now become the most popular repertoire of fontomfrom music among the Fante.<br>This paper demonstrates the connection between the process of this successful innovation and the cultural policy which Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, adopted for nation-building after independence. Nkrumah's political philosophy, known as “African Personality”, involved the rehabilitation of the cultural values of traditional music and dance, leading to the development of the National Theatre Movement in the 1960s. The Movement aimed to explore new styles of performing arts based on the traditional genres of music and dance to construct national identity. It greatly promoted the development of the Ghanaian performing traditions.<br>The introduction of the calypso pattern into the royal drum ensemble is thus considered to be one of the phenomena that resulted from this large cultural movement which grew with the upsurge of nationalist sentiment after independence.

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