CE07

The Music of Ammasu

Ammasu Akapoma Group

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“a wonderful document of a culture handled with care and attention” – Fly Global Music

The Ammasu Akapoma Band was the hottest funeral band in the region

This is the first of our four albums giving a musical portrait of the Village of Ammasu in the Brong-Ahafu region of Ghana. This first album is on CD and digital and comes with a 28 page booklet with texts and pictures. The completing three albums are digital-only.

The music was recorded during our family’s stay between 1975 and 77 where I was studying drumming as a member of the Ammasu Akapuma Band and Prudence was doing anthropological field work and our two children were busy being children.

On these albums you will find ritual and recreational drumming, singing in sorrow and happiness, children’s music, a brass band and more. – Bengt Berger

Here is the album booklet and Prudence’s story about Ammasu:

Album booklet

“Ammasu – an anthropological narrative” by Prudence Woodford-Berger

Atumpan making in Ghana 1976

Some good news as we enter 2023!

This is Amma Kyerenmaa

She sings You Are So Brave, a funeral dirge on The Music of Ammasu album. During 2022 Country & Eastern joined Tracklib a site for legal download and licensing of music that sees to it that money will reach the original creators. During the summer of 2022 Brockhampton, a group from Texas with more than five million listeners per month used two seconds from Amma Kyerenmaas’ singing and offered a handsome sum of money in advance for use in the song Southside. My family did spend a long time in the mid seventies in this rather poor village in the cocoa district of the Brong-Ahafu region learning a lot from the generous people of Ammsu and later I was happy to release some of their great music. So you can imagine the satisfaction and happiness it gives me that a couple of weeks into 2023 (a year we all fear will carry a lot of bad news), the Swedish drummer and traditional Ewe priestess Kristina Aspeqvist will travel to Ammasu to hand over quite a lot of money to the Ammasu village and the Ammasu Akapoma Band.

Tracks

1 Who Is The Chief – Greeting on Atumpan 00:22
2 When I Die There Will Be Peace In The House – Aweso 10:11
3 Proverbs on the Atumpan 01:40
4 Fontomfrom – The Royal Drums 06:14
5 The Royal Horn 00:23
6 You Are So Brave – Funeral Dirge 03:25
7 My Lover Is Stranded At The Opposite Side of the River – Funeral Dirge 03:04
8 My Eyes Are Flooded With Tears – Funeral Dirge 01:31
9 Akapoma 05:31
10 Let Us Say Goodbye – Kununku 15:31
11 Denseuo 02:56
12 New Love Is More Than Madness – Love Song 02:19
13 If I Don’t Marry You I’ll Feel Embarrased – Love Song 02:33
14 Nana Yago – Cantata 05:13
15 Tana Tinana – Cantata 05:04
16 The Brass Band 09:20
17 Eggs Are Eggs – Proverb on the Atumpan 00:23

Musicians

The Ammasu Akapoma Group featuring Ahenkaan, Kwame Yeboah, Kofi Boanu et al
Children of Ammasu
The local Brass Band

More info

There are four albums in all from Ammasu:
Apart from The Music of Ammasu (ce07) with a broad portrait of music in the village, three more mp3-only albums from Ammasu have been released:

cex06 The Music of Ammasu – more drumming
cex07 The Music of Ammasu – more singing
cex08 The Music of Ammasu – analytical drumming

Download the CE07 booklet as pdf.
If you print a physical from your download, here is a pocket for the cd.
Reviews from Songlines and The Wire