Afrikafestival Hertme Koo Nimo Palmwine Quartet

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."

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