Renowned Ghanaian highlife musician, Nana Ampadu, died on September 28, 2021. In this interview from 2007, historian Jennifer Hart talks with him about the music that made him famous.
On June 21, 2007, I arrived at a compound house in La Paz, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. A relatively modest house, it was the home to Nana Ampadu, international recording artist and highlife legend, who died last week. As the Ghanaian guitarist Kyekyeku recounted in an Instagram memorial, “3 decades ago Nana Ampadu declared that he wanted to make his music his ‘own way’ at a time when the musical landscape was fast changing and the dose of ‘foreign’ elements and influences was overwhelming.” As the leader of the African Brothers Band, which was formed in 1963 and became known as the “Beatles of Ghana,” Ampadu went on to write more than 400 songs in his decades-long career. Ampadu was recognized as Nwontofohene (Singer-in-Chief) by the government of Ghana in 1973. In the interview below, which is excerpted from a longer interview conducted as part of dissertation research on the history and culture of driving in Ghana, Ampadu discusses his experience as a musician in the tumultuous 1980s and 1990s, and we talk about the role religion played in the public sphere of our respective countries during that time. I began by asking him about his 1983 hit song, “Driver Adwuma” (or “Driver’s Work” or Adwuma Yi Ye Den (Drivers) [“This Work is Hard”], popularly known as “Drivers”).
- Jennifer Hart
Yeah, we were talking about your song [“Driver Adwuma”]. You said it was released in 1983, but you started in 1977, starting to collect the songs?
- Nana Ampadu
Yeah, I started [in] 1977. I said, I want to sing about drivers—the inscriptions on their cars. Because when you read some of them, they are very entertaining. Some of them are thought provoking. Some of them are insinuating … writings. Some of them, you will laugh, you know? So, I said, no, I can make music out of this. So what I will do is I will start to collect the inscriptions. And it took me six good years before I could come out. I got about 140 plus, and I seek them. I scribed through and picked those others that I felt …
- Jennifer Hart
The 70 that you thought were good. Yeah.
- Nana Ampadu
Yeah, so it was 70. If you have got the record, read it and you see it. Thirty-five for the old cars, and 35 for the new [laughing]. It became so popular and it is still popular—still people buy it. It’s not forgetting because it was the first of its kind in the country. Nobody has, you know, come out with such a beautiful piece.
- Jennifer Hart
You’ve started a new one? … For your new song?
- Nana Ampadu
Uh huh. For the new song, but for the drivers, this time to advise them, their behavioral attitude, how they must behave. When they are entering the main road, they have to stop and look and then I will add their inscriptions as I did with the first one.
- Jennifer Hart
Aha, I see. So me, um, I see a lot more religious ones from what people have told me before … So now you see a lot of “My God is Able” and “God is King” and “God First” and “Onyame Adom” and “Nyame Nhyira wo.”
- Nana Ampadu
Yeah, some of them are sung in Ewe … In Ga, “LÉlÉnyÉ.” That is the Mantse [chief].
- Jennifer Hart
Yeah, and “Abedi” and “Abele.”
- Nana Ampadu
“Abele.” “Abele” means “corn.”
- Jennifer Hart
Yeah, and there was one in Arabic or something as well. “Aquay Allah,” or something …
- Nana Ampadu
“Acquay Allah,” that is Hausa. “Acquay Allah,” meaning [God exists]. You may not see it today on [a] car. … Things are changing. … On what they want to write. … These times, if you don’t go to the hinterlands, you’re not going to see inscriptions like “Obi dea ba.” You get it? Those letters that portray wretchedness. In the cities these young boys will not write anything that will deprive … no! … demoralize … no! … … a little. But in the villages you can still have some of those cars.
- Jennifer Hart
Even when they have old cars now, I met a boy, a young man, who was driving a car, an old car and it said “Destiny,” and he told me that he was so confident that he was going to do better things. He said, “Today I may be here, but tomorrow, you don’t know. I may be teaching at the university or something.” And so, I think, even when they have the old cars now they still … they want to be confident in their future, and they think God helps them get it.
- Nana Ampadu
In those generations, that was the tyranny in the system. You know, we could feel, poverty was an element of havoc. You see? People tempted those who were poor. And so they had some consolation to write “Énye se ano mu, eye.” Don’t expect that you will see me in these tattered clothes in the next future.
- Jennifer Hart
But now they don’t like to admit that they have the tattered clothes to start with?
- Nana Ampadu
Yeah. Now Christianity is unfolding everywhere. That is what’s changing the minds of the people. They’re getting a new perception—a perception of positiveness. Unlike their old times where people would be brooding over life.
- Jennifer Hart
And now because of Christianity they think that things will get better …
- Nana Ampadu
They think, they’re teaching talk better for yourself and it will happen because you expect it. You get it? Talk better things. Like the one who wrote, “Destiny” and he was telling you, “Maybe today you will see me, I’m a driver’s mate, but next time you see me a teacher. A step forward in the right direction in life.
- Jennifer Hart
Um, yeah, it’s similar to some of the preachers who say, you know, they like this … they call it “Gospel of Prosperity,” and so they say if you believe then you will be rewarded. You will be prosperous, you will succeed.
- Nana Ampadu
So you collected the names of the churches also?
- Jennifer Hart
Yeah, I’ve had some of the names of the churches, yeah. The new Pentecostal ones, the charismatic ones. Those are the ones that are the most interesting I think.
- Nana Ampadu
My church is, um, you know I’m an evangelist? They told you? … Center for Christ Mission.
- Jennifer Hart
Yeah, and so do you sing anymore or no? You sing in your church?
- Nana Ampadu
I sing in my church. I sing at big funerals, big functions. Yeah, this year when we had the 50th independence I was drawn up with other prominent musicians, yeah, to sing at a concert. A very big concert for dignitaries. And we were given some awards.
- Jennifer Hart
But you … choose to go sing gospel music after you stopped the highlife?
- Nana Ampadu
No, [I went to perform] highlife … let me tell you one thing. People misconstrue and have a different conception of what is highlife. Highlife is the rudiments of rhythms in Ghana, you see? Highlife is Ghana, when you talk about music. Highlife is the beat, so you can sing the secular music using the highlife tempo, like America is for jazz. You can sing gospel with jazz, you can sing secular with jazz, but people don’t understand it. The moment you sing secular, they say you are playing highlife while somebody sings and says “Oh Lord, I love you!” They play it with the highlife rhythm, they will say it is gospel and forget about mentioning highlife. The highlife is the tempo, the recognized tempo, the indigenous tempo of Ghanaians.
- Jennifer Hart
So you’re an evangelist and a musician at the same time?
- Nana Ampadu
Yeah, the meeting [connection between the two—being an evangelist and a musician] is an inborn kind of thing. The other day I was telling people, in music you can say I’m going for a timing. It’s not like government officials when they will just check your age and say you are 55, you are 60, go on retirement. Dr. Ephraim Amu retired when he was about 85. He was still a musician when he died.
- Jennifer Hart
It’s true, yeah. Very true. So, as a preacher, what do you think of these … or an evangelist—sorry—what do you think of these people now and the new kinds of signboards you see on the taxis?
- Nana Ampadu
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