Koo Nimo (born Kwabena Boa-Amponsem on 3 October 1934, baptized
Daniel Amponsah is a leading folk musician of Palm wine music or
Highlife music from Ghana.
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Koo Nimo
Born in the village of Foase, in the Atwima District of the Ashanti Region in Ghana, West Africa, he worked in various jobs in science and medical-related field while maintaining his interest in music. In 1957, when the former British colony of the Gold Coast became the independent country of Ghana, Koo Nimo first received national acclaim through the formation of the Addadam Agofomma ensemble.4m
Many of his songs tell traditional stories and are sung in the
language Twi. Along with one or two guitars and vocals, the
traditional Ashanti palmwine ensemble consists of traditional
instruments of West Africa, including the apentemma and the donno,
the frikyiwa (metal castanet), the prempensua (rhumba box), the
ntorwa (hollow gourd rattle with beads or seeds woven around it on
a net), and the nnawuta (consisting of two iron bells that provide
the key rhythmic pattern) or dawuro (banana-shaped bell).
In 1979, in recognition of his services to Ghanaian music as performer, teacher and administrator, Koo Nimo was elected President of MUSIGA (the Musicians' Union of Ghana).
His countrymen appreciated not only his music, but his love of and respect for tradition. In 1985 Koo Nimo was appointed interim chairman of COSGA, the Copyright Society of Ghana, More recently he has been made an honorary life member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, along with such distinguished names as Professor J.H.K. Nketia and John Collins. In 1990, eight of Koo's songs were released as a compact disk entitled Osabarima.
This was the first work by a Ghanaian artist to be put on CD. In the words of High Fidelity Magazine (September 1990, 103).
In February 1991, in recognition of his services to music and to his country, Koo received the prestigious Asanteman award from the Asantehene. In March, he received the Flag Star award from ECRAG (Entertainment Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana). In 1991, he was invited to serve on the National Folklore Board of Trustees.
In January, 1992, at Columbia University, New York, USA, Andrew L. Kaye presented his dissertation entitled Koo Nimo and his circle: A Ghanaian Musician in Ethnomusicological Perspective and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for his work. In March 1997, the Ghana government celebrated the fortieth anniversary of independence by awarding gold medals to forty of its distinguished citizens, one of whom was Koo Nimo.
This was in recognition of his efforts to preserve traditional culture. In the next month he received the Konkoma Award for his contribution to Ghanaian Highlife Music.
In 1998, Koo was employed as a Professor of Ethnomusicology at the
University of Washington in Seattle, USA, for two years, before
taking a similar position at the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor. As of 2006, Koo Nimo has moved back to Ghana and is
currently living in Kumasi.
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Discography
Ashanti Ballads (1968)
OSABARIMA (1990, re-issued 2000)
TETE WOBI KA (2000)
Highlife Roots Revival (to be released on 30th July 2012 by
Riverboat Records)
By Ghanamusic.com
With over 50 years’ experience playing traditional and palmwine
music (highlife music), for which he has become so well-loved in
Ghana and internationally, Koo Nimo has expressed concern that this
unique heritage is under threat.
“There are threats to traditions of the Court music,” Nimo told The
EastAfrican, adding: “The youth today dance foreign music and are
moving away from our own. Some of the lyrics of the songs do not
live up to Ghanaian decency standards.”
Nimo, Ghana’s leading folk singer, is well known for playing
multiple forms of traditional music. For over four decades, he has
devoted his life to promoting and preserving local culture through
his palmwine music and ballads.
“I started my musical career the first day I was born. I sang my
first song when I cried. A man is born as a self contained musical
instrument,” Nimo, who was born on October 3, 1934 in the Ashanti
region, and whose real names are Daniel Amponsah, said.
The musician spent part of his childhood at the Asante king’s court
where he learnt his trade.
“I spent the formative years of my life at the Asantehene’s court
(King of Asante) where I was taught the traditions of the court. I
sat under the tutelage of many old men and women who are the
custodians of our culture.”
Elegantly draped in the traditional Akan cloth, Nimo and his Adadam
Agofomma (Back-To-the-Roots Ensemble) recently put up a pulsating
private show for the finalists and judges of the CNN Multichoice
African Journalist Awards 2008 in Accra, Ghana.
The ensemble played some of its best palmwine guitar music hits
from Nimo’s “Osabarima” and “Tete Wobi Ka” collections.
“I have released about six albums and over a hundred songs and
there are new albums to come,” the poet, storyteller and songwriter
said.
“Osabarima” was Nimo’s first CD containing eight of his popular
songs. It was issued by Adasa Records in 1990 and then re-issued in
2000 and distributed by Stern’s Records in London.
It contains tracks like: Aburokyire Abrabo (A song about the
disillusionment of living overseas), Owusu Se M’Amma (Advice about
lack of consideration for a neighbour), Osabarima (Good Friday
song, about the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ), Akora Dua Kube (A
very old man plants a coconut tree which he will not live to see
bear fruit), Onipa Behwe Yie (Forewarned is forearmed), among
others.
“Tete Wobi Ka” was Nimo’s second CD issued in 2000 featuring his
trademark guitar and vocal style with traditional rhythm
section.....
He is joined on this CD by Osei Kwame with his
modern interpretations of the pre-colonial praise singing tradition
with seperewa (6- to 14- stringed harp-lute)
accompaniment.
The seperewa is the Ghanaian (specifically Akan) version of a
harp-like instrument found in many West African
cultures
It has traditionally 6 strings (Osei’s, which he made
himself, has 14), and is played by plucking with thumbs and
forefingers.
Osei is one of the leading exponents of this instrument
today, and is Seperewa Instructor at the University of Ghana at
Legon. Osei’s grandfather helped to reintroduce the seperewa to
Ghanaian popular culture in the 1920s and taught Osei many of the
traditional songs he now performs.
Nimo’s music has been described as “A pulsating mix of
melodious and intoxicating guitar patterns, harmonious vocals, and
mesmerising percussion.
It brings to life the meaning of the Sankofa image, a
symbolic bird of the Asante people of Ghana, looking backwards with
one foot forward to the future,” by Professors Andrew Kaye and
Cynthia Schmidt. “Koo Nimo sings lyrics infused with Asante wisdom,
peppered with the proverbs that are so essential to a West African
audience.”
“Certainly one of the elements which gives Nimo’s music a
strong indigenous flavour are his lyrics, which show a great deal
of attention to the use of court language and subtle proverbs, many
of which he gleans from the local elders who are knowledgeable
about Ashanti traditions…,” A. L. Kaye writes in a paper, Up-Up-Up
and More Up.
“He uses the proverbs to pepper lyrics centred around
messages dealing with contemporary issues of African life. Koo
Nimo’s lyrics, like his rhythms and entire performance format, are
multi-leveled.”
“What has become obvious to many listeners and specialists is
that the origin of jazz is firmly rooted in Africa and shared
throughout the black world,” Kwabena Fosu-Mensah writes in the
sleeve notes of Nimo’s CD “Osabarima.”
“African Americans, however, deserve the credit for having
put a certain stamp and credibility to it across the whole world.
They retained the music which they carried from Africa in the
colonial times and successfully created a novel sound of the moment
out of it,” Fosu-Mensah adds.
Apart from his early exposure to music by his parents and
playing in local groups, particularly IE’s Band, Nimo also studied
classical guitar style, harmony and counterpoint, among others, at
various times, to enhance his musical appreciation.
“I didn’t want to be a Segovia. I wanted to be an African
guitarist, using my technique to do justice to my own music, which
I understand better,” he is quoted in the sleeve notes of his
CD.”
Although a great consumer of jazz music — from Charlie
Parker, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery and Count
Basie to Antonio Carlos Jobim, Lorendo Almeida and Thelonius Monk,
Nimo is said to have drawn inspiration first from Ghanaian
guitarist, Kwabena Onyina.
“I didn’t, however, want to be a second-rate guitarist, hence
my determination to dig into my past for a traditional sound which
I have now fashioned on the lines of Odonson (which literally
means, ‘let love succeed or prevail,’ developed from an old dance
form during which old folks — “men and women” — performed close to
each other,” he explains.
His retirement from the University of Science and Technology
in Kumasi, Ghana, as the chief laboratory technician in 1994 has
enabled him to concentrate on his achievements.
Nimo and his ensemble have represented their country at
several international arts festivals and have also toured
extensively throughout Europe and America, where he shared the
stage with Puerto Rico’s Yomo Toro during a 1988 ‘Guitar
Summit.’
He was president of the Ghana Musicians Union for 10 years,
and received the Grand Medal for Lifetime Service to Ghana from the
head of state.
He was interim chairman of the Copyright Society of Ghana,
Member of the Board of Directors of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation,
Member of the Education Commission of Ghana, and part-time lecturer
in guitar at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, among others. He
has been an inspiration to younger generations of Ghanaian
musicians.
Some of Koo Nimo’s works are studied alongside those of other
African musicians in the West African Examination Council syllabus
for music.
For the future plans for the group, he says: “The first thing
is to make sure all the members become well educated, and in the
process we train young talented people to take our
places.”
Piracy has adversely affected African artists, to which Nimo
says: “I think copyright laws should be strengthened, offenders
should be fined heavily enough and artists should register with
efficient copyright societies.”
Palmwine music developed as a distinctive musical style in
Ghana beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, and is named after the
local brew often consumed liberally during its performance and
appreciation.
The Ghanaian guitar wizard has been portrayed by Afro-Pop
music commentator John Collins as a kind of Homeric Bard of West
African Palmwine Guitar, and who the Ghanaian journalist Kwabena
Fosu-Mensah has dubbed “The Repository of Asante (Ashanti) Music
and Culture.”
On his legacy Nimo says: “I would like to be a dealer in
hope, and to leave behind among the youth the conviction and the
will to carry on.”
Nimo’s style features the modern guitar, but includes a
traditional Highlife rhythm section (bells, hand drums, and “rhumba
box” or 3-keyed bass sanza). The songs are sung mostly in the Twi
language of the Asante (Ashanti) ethnic group, but Nimo is fond of
throwing in English phrases and quotations as well, from which one
can get a sense of the Twi commentary while playing the acoustic
guitar.
Others have called him the “King of Up-Up-Up.” Up-Up-Up!!??
This refers to a pulsating mix of melodious and intoxicating guitar
patterns, harmonious vocals and mesmerising
percussion.
“It is Koo Nimo’s distinctive fusion of indigenous Ghanaian
musical forms and instruments with a wholly new and very personal
aesthetic sensibility. Up-Up-Up is about a music with a youthful
and buoyant rhythmic appeal, with lyrics of noble beauty, infused
with elegant and powerful Asante poetic imagery,” Kaye
writes.
According to Kaye, Nimo developed Up-Up-Up back in the mid
1950s, during the heady days of African liberation. During that
time, Nimo had moved from his native village near Kumasi to Accra,
where he became a successful guitarist in the booming popular music
scene.
This was the heyday of the now vintage High Life music of
groups such as E.T. Mensah’s Tempos and King Bruce’s Black
Beats.
“Today,” Kaye observes that, “Koo Nimo is a musical figure of
international stature. Perhaps no other artist better represents
the Janus-faced nature of the new African music - looking towards a
vibrant new musical future but keeping vigilant that past cultural
values remain very much Up and alive. He has achieved this position
through the force of his character, and the exciting, novel,
amazing and uplifting quality of his music.”
On his legacy he says: “I would like to be a dealer in hope,
and to leave behind among the youth the conviction and the will to
carry on.”
In regards to his retirement he concludes: “I do plan to
retire, but it could be a few minutes before I enter the grave to
join my ancestors.”
After Ghanaian Independence in 1957, Nimo had a vision of
creating a new kind of African music. He formed a new group which
he called the Adadam, or “Back-to-the-Roots” Ensemble.
With the Adadam group, which consisted of acoustic guitars, a
three-pronged bass sanza called the prempresiwa (relative of the
Caribbean “rumba box”), the dawuro bell, African percussion and
vocals, Koo Nimo revived older indigenous musical forms and infused
them with a sense of style and purpose consonant with the
optimistic spirit of his generation.
“This spirit lives on and thrives in the music and musical
personality of Koo Nimo, which has deepened and sweetened over the
years. It is not just the music which makes Up-Up-Up so alive and
fulfilling, but the man himself. Whether at an intimate setting,
among friends, at an all-night wake-keeping, or at a special
concert at the State House in Accra before an audience of
thousands, Koo Nimo never fails to captivate audiences with his
seemingly unlimited resources of musical artistry and personal
magnetism,” Kaye adds.
Describing the legend’s music Kaye notes: “The real wonder
begins when Koo Nimo puts, his knowing finger to the strings of a
guitar and does his magic, bringing together both the past and
present within a wonderfully propelling rhythmic framework. Koo
Nimo likes to compare his guitar to a beautiful woman, and the
music he creates on it can only be described as loving. Solo, or in
duet with Kofi Twuniasi, his musical partner for the past
twenty-five years, Koo Nimo produces a sweet and limpid texture of
gracefully overlapping melodies set in undulating cross-rhythms
which create a sparkling symphonic atmosphere that simultaneously
appears new-born and ageless.”
Kaye adds: “This extraordinarily appealing guitar work,
however, is only one layer of a musical texture that is incredibly
multi-layered, while always maintaining a crystalline clarity.
Several indigenous percussion instruments, including the
prempresiwa (rumba box), dawuro bell and apentemma drums played
conga-style, create the impression of an infinity of overlapping
rhythmic planes, with patterns alternately rising and falling below
a smooth surface. Floating above these interlacing rhythms and
harmonies is Koo Nimo’s gentle voice, which soars in broad
melodies, or speaks in “lip improvisation,” a kind of rap of
Ashanti wisdom, in which the singer recounts proverbs old and new
and creates that environment of articulate meaning which is so
essential to an African audience.”
“Today,” Kaye observes that, “Koo Nimo is a musical figure of
international stature. Perhaps no other artist better represents
the Janus-faced nature of the new African music - looking towards a
vibrant new musical future but keeping vigilant that past cultural
values remain very much Up and alive. He has achieved this position
through the force of his character, and the exciting, novel,
amazing and uplifting quality of his music.”
On his legacy he says: “I would like to be a dealer in hope,
and to leave behind among the youth the conviction and the will to
carry on.”
In regards to his retirement he concludes: “I do plan to
retire, but it could be a few minutes before I enter the grave to
join my ancestors..
(soon)
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