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Young Ghanaians such as rappers Medikal and Kwesi Arthur have exploded into the country’s musical consciousness with car-window-shattering bass and click tracks that put their sounds in line with dominant hip hop strains. New pop-rappers such as Bosom P-Yung go for the croon, draped in auto tune, while increasingly, women, such as Amaaree, have made dents in the sultry R & B-influenced pop tracks coming from this culturally rich West African nation. However, one could be forgiven for not knowing where this music is from upon first hearing, perhaps even assuming it’s from the US, so heavily does it re-purpose African-American styles.
Alostmen, a quartet centered on two-stringed lute player Stevo Atimbire, are pushing music forward a bit differently; their approach is much more rooted in Ghana’s past. For one, Atimbire’s kologo is an instrument that connects to fra fra tribespeople in the country’s north. And certain tracks, such as the unadorned “Bayiti,” driven by voice and solo kologo, are unmistakably West African, the voices repeating singular words over the melodically minimal music. Yet, Alostmen are young guys as into hip hop or reggae as anything traditional, which is why their music sounds so startling fresh.
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Even when they bring in guest Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, who has been recording since the early 1970s, the track that features him, “Minus Me,” is hard, electric future-funk. In this way, they manage to wrap the present around specific sounds form the past. Elsewhere, rapper Medikal appears on a track that loops a goje (one-string fiddle) underneath a beat of percussion and what sounds like a Celtic flute. “Tanga” scoots along on talking drums and stuttering, mutating pulse. In fact, no two songs here sound alike; at times, it’s difficult to recognize Atimbire’s kologo at all, so radical is his approach.
What’s as important as the genuinely excellent music here is the fact this is group of folks drawing on their own music as a base for sounds every bit as current as the above-mentioned artists. And because they have the grounding that they do, what they create won’t get swept away by the fickle tides of pop music.
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