Memories

On the 24th June we took part in the integration festival in Muri. The performance was great and you can really feel it in the audience. In the end of the festival I saw how people united, conversing with each other and it didn’t matter were you come from. That reminded me what music was doing in our area district in Accra some years ago.

Some years ago there was a misunderstanding among the young people of the area, which affected us so much for many years. We could not use some ways  and they were also banned of using our passages. Everywhere we meet, there was a tension.

There is a traditional music called Bobobo . Anywhere we heard this music, we the boys from the area were dancing, because it was touching so much with its rhythms and dance. The Bobobo rhythm and dance was like a disco for us. We didn’t get this music often, so everytime we heard the bobobo music in a different area, we even will walk one hour to go and dance it.

One day we went to Kotobabi, an area in Accra, where bobobo was playing. They had there own dancers, but we danced around the music with a lot of audience. Suddenly we saw our neighbours, which we are not fine with them. Their group was also there to dance. We are all dancing, but our eyes were wide open on both sides. You can feel the tension was very high from both sides. Non of the audience and the bobobo group knew about our problem.

Then one of their member approached my colleague with a very strong dance movement. He then responded with weaked steps. Their conversation with the dance draw the attention of the audience. They started to cheer and clap for the two. That incouraged us to form a circle around them. Everybody was giving his colleague a support. One of the other group came and took over in the middle of the circle. One of our member also went and took over. It became like a tiny competition, but with a lot of laughing and cheering from the audience. Many of the audience know our group as artists. So they belived we are going to win. We understand the bobobo rhythm and its movments very well. Mostly we were dancing according to the leading drummer. But our opponent didn’t know anything about this bobobo. They just danced freestyle. Some weaked movements which were coming from them was getting more fans from the audience than we did. Sometimes we even were impressed about their dance. This went on for hours.

Suddely a song came out from the bobobo group, which is standing for unity and love. We all respond it with loud voice. This song was a very popular song and everybody knew it.

We then danced in a circle according to style each person will bring.

We danced together until the bobobo group closed. We all, our enemy neighbours and we sang together and walked to our area. We reached our area, continued singing together and we led them to their area and continued singing there.

Since this day, all the tension which was inbetween us and disturbed us so much and we were afraid of each other, vanished without judgement. We became good friends till now.

This is the value of the traditional music with its movements and songs. It heals wounds and brings togetherness. It is  touching me so much and makes me happy, if I remember that it is „only“ bobobo music and dance who brought us together again. The song enter our mind and we sang it with joy and happyness which opened our mind. None of us even made any comment about the past. It was just like washed away.

The reason why I am telling this memories is: as I went last time to Ghana in 2011 I saw our youth getting interested back into traditional music and movements. They just do it as fun. I am asking my fellow artists to also share their ideas on the line with our youth to get a better understanding about traditional music.

I learned a lot from a group called Sankofa, Ghana dance ensemble, Kokrobite academy obonu group, school of performing arts and panafrican orchestra. And many groups from Greater Accra Region.

We followed the footsteps of many artists of Ghana. Why don’t we share ideas with the youth as they are using the internet more than we do. They might come a across your website or blogg to read and learn something from it. I am asking all artists which some of them I know personally, we should bring our talent out. We should not be scarred of the media and think somebody will take it. Nowadays everything is in the net.

You can even read about the archive of your little village in Africa in the net.

We should try to be open.

If you use your ingrediant and bake a cake. Then you find out someone has baken the same cake with a different color, you have two possibilities and benefit. The possiblity 1 is, change some ingrediants and bake another one. The 2. possibility is to add more. Its benefit is to get creativity.

 John Kofi Donkor

BOBOBO-DANCE-BEAT