The International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL STUDIES ISSN 2321 - 9203 www.theijhss.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL STUDIES Rationalizing Popular Music Discourses in Contemporary Ghana: A Media and Communication Perspective Eugene Agbasi Adjoteye Lecturer, Department of Communication and General Studies, Methodist University College, Ghana Abstract: This paper will attempt to discuss the issues that pervade the popular music sphere in contemporary Ghana. It will also attempt to answer the questions: What is popular music in Ghana? What is the cultural form of popular music in Ghana? What is the cultural environment impacted upon by popular music discourses? How can we study popular music in Ghana as an authentic field of media and communication? What is the functionality/dysfunctionality of popular music discourses in the contemporary Ghanaian socio-musical cultural space? It is also the thesis of this paper to look at popular music as a historical and social construct. The stance of this paper is that it is possible to analyse socio-cultural change, fathom new psycho-social perceptions by a holistic study of popular music. The popular music space is, further, set off as the locus where the systemic world meets the life world for meaning and communication. This paper is informed by the notion that popular music consumption is not an obscure enterprise directed entirely to an exclusively esoteric audience with padded layers of sub-cultures. Its universality in the contemporary Ghanaian socio- cultural space is emphasized. Keywords: Popular music, socio-cultural change, esoteric audience, cultural form, life world 1. Introduction Popular music is used to denote a variety of musical styles and genres. Implicit in the phrase ‘popular music’ is quantitative success i.e., any musical style that sells sufficient numbers to an exoteric audience could be described as popular music. As Burnett (1990) asserts sufficient purchase by the youth audience define what popular music is at any specific time. Denis of (1975) (quoted by Burnett, 1990) defines popular music as ‘the sum total of those taste units, social groups and musical genres which coalesce along certain taste and preference similarities in a given time and space’. Tagg (1982) also views popular music as occurring in industrial societies. But then it must be said that popular music appears in all kinds of societies, though it is primarily produced in the urban industrial epicentres and this is also evident in contemporary urban Ghana. Popular music is thus self-defined i.e. music that is popular. It is directed at a self-selected audience i.e. the youth. It is prima facie that this audience essentially chooses what is popular with its listening time and money. Thus quantitatively, popular music is a recognized product. Box office popularity and success is determined by indices such as radio play, YouTube presence, musical clips on varioustv channels, music tv, internet downloads, caller tunes on mobile phones, sufficient purchase by the youth audience and the numbers that attend a particular musical live performance and so on. John Collins (2007; 2012) gives a historical overview of what corpora of music to include in terms of popular music discourses in Ghana. He stressed, inter alia,’ Despite the collapse of live popular entertainment during the late seventies and eighties, three new musical genres have emerged. One is related to imported techno-pop styles (like disco and rap). The second is, local church music, and the third is ‘folklorised’ performance encouraged by tourism’ (cfMatczynski, 2011). These musical genres have recently emerged with artistes like Kidi, Shatta Wale, Stoneboy, Kwame Eugene, Dope Nation, Becca, Kwaw Kesse, Samini, Blakk Rasta, Kofi Kinata, MzBel, Wendy Shay, Adina, Sarkodie among others It must be said that geographical space is important in the delineation of what is popular. The esoteric audience addressed may be different from society to society. What is mutual to all the geographical spaces in terms of popular culture is the fact that the youth are the paramount sociological categories and ‘taste units’ addressed (cf. Nikoi, 2020).The terrain of popular music in Ghana may, thus, be set off by the amount of internet downloads , producer mention and so on.Youth tastes are not monolithic; they are molded and impacted by numerous social forces around them, ranging from marital status, education, geographical location (cf.Burnett,1990).The consumption of popular music in Ghana may thus be the space where, the systemic forces meet the life world for meaning and communication (Habermas,1989). Contextual soundscapes also define what is popular. An industrial society with soundscapes of distant traffic, ventilators, refrigerators, underground railway stations, cracklings of computer networks and androids and fibre optic and 157 Vol 9 Issue 2 DOI No.: 10.24940/theijhss/2021/v9/i2/HS2102-036 February, 2021 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL STUDIES ISSN 2321 - 9203 www.theijhss.com space technologyetc will be metaphorically and literally different from a society characterized by an agora of hawkers, traffic jams, funeral ceremonies, outdoorings, school homecomings, bazaars, street carnivals- and the ‘sakawa’ spatial (cybercrime kingpins). The Ghanaian societal space is cluttered with scavengers of eco-unfriendly discarded computers, and discarded old refrigerators from western countries ; coupled with a socio-cultural space with varied degrees of computer literacy, and varying coverage of tv and radio stations and internet, should be differentiated from other socio- cultural spaces. A lopsided penetration and interconnectivity of mobile phone companies and service deliverables (Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp, zoom, Instagram, twitter, Netflix certainly makes the sonic landscape of Ghana simulating the societal landscape most industrialized country where rock music and classical music thrives. It must be stressed that the listening mode is also important vis-à-vis popular music. Tagg (1990) talks about how listening modality is culturally acquired and not purely biological (for example one must be trained to enjoy classical music). Codal competence is therefore important when it comes to grasping the nuances of even popular music. How would a Ghanaian appreciate Tunisian Nouba music or rock music or generally Arabian music? Such music shave been conceived according to totally different principles of acoustic, cultural and social properties. The Ghanaian may say ‘there is no tune’ when he collides with such music. African polyrythms have been noted to be problematic when it comes to their appreciation in the European/North American musical taste sphere. Although such artistes as Davido, Burna Boy, Yousouf Ndou, Magic Systems, Fela, Miriam Makeba, Angelique Kidjo, Salif Keita, Yvonne Chakachaka and the music and dance companies llke Ujoma (South Africa) and Noyam (Ghana) have been noted to have achieved global acclaim and universal recognition . They help purvey the authentic African cultural reality. It is necessary to mention here, in any case, that sound per se must pass through a culture filter. Symbolic meanings and onomatopoeic relationships that are exuded by music, in our case, popular music is therefore culturally specific. What is popular music is, therefore, delineated by the societal and cultural context of the popular music text. Gecau (1993) avers that ‘…It is clear the text provides a basis for discourse, interpretation and production. As such, the artistic and aesthetic aspects of the text as much as its more didactic content becomes means in a communicative process. This reinforces what the people already know and furthermore provides a basis for analysis, production of meanings and development of concepts, ideas, knowledge and feelings about the reality in which people live. This does not only happen at the mental level, but at the emotive one as well’ It significant to reiterate that tastes, background and culture are important in the public life of society. Readership and listenership tastes can therefore be an outward expression of cultural and social identity (McQuail,2010). 2. Literature Review 2.1. Music as a Cultural Form It has been said in most literatures on music that music is in itself a cultural form. Through styles and genres, forms and signs it offers a symbolic system which can be used for interaction. Burnett (1990) asserts that music like language relates to three levels a) objective reality b) norms and relations c) producing and expressing subjectivity. Burnett (1990) further talks about music per se with its signs and symbols and how they point to themselves or intertextually relate to other systems of meaning. Thus an aesthetic analysis may point to how symbols and styles of music relate to each other and what intertextualities exist between different musical works (for instance who influenced who- black Americans or Africans?). It is also valid to say that by listening or playing, say hiplife or highlife music people learn how to use symbolic forms e.g., words, music, gestures, images and so on that are valid for self and others (Otchere & Dordzro, 2020). Cultural learning is also social it has to be anchored in the individual as well as in the collective. Therefore, the cultural level demands intersubjectively shared interpretations of meaning. Sometimes symbolic communication through music can form propositional discourses (Burnett 1990). Bob Marley’s song ‘Stand up for your rights’