The amazing Legon Palm Wine Band came out of a musical experiment based on the legendary innovation and exploits of Agya Koo Nimo and his folk kind of Highlife called “Palm Wine” music, to perpetuate the legacy of the renowned Highlife Musician, according to the leader of the band.
Papa Sunu, the leader of the band recounted on the New Day show on Friday, March 25, that the band started in 2015 when he assembled a group of Performing Arts students to teach them how to play instruments like the Prenprensiwa, the guitar, the Frikyiwa, the Wosom/Sekeseke, and the Kpanlogo drum, forming a quintet, a group of five.
According to Papa Sunu, “the band is based on the legacies of Agya Koo Nimo and how there hasn’t been anyone to carry on what he had taken from our forefathers, so I thought to carry on with my friends and my students, to follow what Agya Koo has done and put our own interpretations to that tradition. Like we say: culture is not stagnant, so we decided to put our own interpretation to that tradition in keeping it alive”.
“And we started this in 2015 but it became feasible in 2016. In 2017 we brought the popular Kwampa, which is an extension of the band, with the idea of bringing agency into the Palm Wine band. Sustaining the music tradition is our goal”.
When asked how the response has been to their brand of music, he said: “it’s been challenging when we started, for all of them they got to learn about Palm Wine music when it started, so I will do the research and pass it to them and they will do their own research but when Kwampa came on board, it seems to have changed, now people started paying attention to the music genre, people started listening to us more and I was away for some time so the four of them held the front, they did a good job, of course with Kwampa’s publicity, so it’s been encouraging but we still believe there’s more we can do to draw people’s attention to the genre”.
The band is made up of Papa Sunu playing the Kpanlogo drum, Kwame Owusu Brown playing the Prenpensiwa, Samuel Agyeman Boahen playing the lead guitar, Seth Kpodo as the lead vocalist, and Kwadwo Ampofo playing the Frikyiwa and Wosom/Sekeseke respectively.
He also pointed out that they have an album out called “Legon Abrabo/University Life”, which was released in 2020 on all music streaming and social media platforms for public patronage and following.
By Barima Kwabena Yeboah|editors.3news.com|Ghana
