JAMA MUSIC: THE ANSWER TO GHANA’s MUSIC IDENTITY CRISIS?

730 Magazine
3 min readFeb 23, 2024

--

In more recent times, Azonto dance trends have been recaptured by content creators in Ghana and the London diaspora, in a series of movements tagged #Azontowarrior #bringbackazonto and #Azontoisnotdead. Doing so single handedly, these individuals have resurrected the “lost” genre to an international audience on Tiktok– using the Azonto dance to compete with flamboyant African dance exports like Shoki, Gwara Gwara, Vosho. But Azonto isn’t all that — a dance. It’s a more dynamic music genre that gained prominence a decade ago with Ghanaian artistes like Gasmilla, Sarkodie, Joey B, Guru, Fuse ODG, EL, Bisa Kdei, Keche and Nigeria’s Wizkid pioneering the sound. Originally called Jama/Asorkpor music belonging to the Ga people of Accra, deriving from their traditional music Kpanlogo/Kolomashie.

The legendary producer Jay-Q took the Jama genre from the streets, revamped it & produced many hits with VIP, Castro, Mzbel etc that dominated West Africa in the early and mid 2000s, leading to the resurgence of the genre with the global Azonto dance movement in the early 2010s. Many argue that this should have been Ghana’s “It” music export in the past decade, attaining heights that the late 1900’s highlife genre achieved internationally.

Following a series of debates which have ensued on local stations and public platforms, scrutinising the role Ghanaians played in the death of the genre — now, in a bid to have a musical identity, there’s been a constant push-pull by Ghanaians against Nigerians on the ownership of Afrobeat, the originator of the Afrobeats sound. As it stands, there may be some facts to support this claim, but one may question why Ghanaians care so much about the notion of “rights” and “ownerships” at the expense of their own industry & Cultural Identity? Afrobeats is an umbrella genre for popular African dance music genres, and you’ll be noticed if you’re able to intentionally project your local sound like South Africans did with Amapiano.

Perhaps, since there is an attribution of every Afrobeats song as Nigerian or the insinuations of some Nigerian fans against Ghanaian artists as the copycats of the Afrobeats, it’s quite clear why such an issue exists. Now the catch is, music fans and artists alike demand the highest seats on the table when Afrobeats is mentioned on a global scale.

Ghana has a diverse music industry and talented artists who equally produce quality songs under these genres; traditional music, hiplife, highlife, hip-hop, Ghanaian drill, dancehall and “Jama music”. Having chalked up some international successes within a few years, with songs by new age artists like Asakaa, Kelvyn boy, Yaw Tog, Kwesi Arthur, Amaarae, Black Sherif, certainly Ghana’s music industry leaders may want to devise a plan that sells it’s music to a bigger audience. In this age of digital marketing, more should be done to promote artists beyond independent creators grooving to old Jama music for the sake of nostalgia. Who knows, with Ghana facing a music identity crisis, supporting the vision of these Tiktok focused movements can truly be used to revive a second wave of Jama Music we enjoyed in the early 2010’s.

730 Jama music playlist:

Kwamz & Flava — Wo onane no

Keche — Sokode

Bisa Kdei — Over

4x4 — Yesii Yesii

Criss Waddle ft. Bisa Kdei — Ayi

Guru — Lapaz Toyota

Sakordie ft. EL — You go kill me

Medikal ft. Shatta Wale — Stubborn Academy

Gasmilla — 3 points

Beyoncé ft. Shatta Wale — Already

WORDS BY ABIGAIL DUODO (@ a.b_grey )

--

--

730 Magazine
730 Magazine

No responses yet