Guitar star
Kumi Guitar has taken one of Ghana’s oldest and most-loved musical genres, highlife, and given it a modern makeover. Here he reveals to Mark Edwards how he found his voice and how musical inspiration for his songs can come at any time.
G
hanaian highlife artist Kumi
he’s stuck in traffic – which in car-
‘Betweener’, a lilting love song in
Guitar is rarely without his
crammed Accra is a regular occur-
which Kumi acts as a kind of highlife
namesake instrument. He
rence – and even takes it with him
Cyrano de Bergerac to a friend,
turns up to our interview carrying
into the bathroom, where he can
advising him on how to win back
a beautiful maroon six-string (he
disappear for hours if inspiration hits.
his girl. Critical approval has also
describes it as the “side-chick” to
“My kids know if they can’t find
followed with Kumi nominated as
the black guitar he normally records
me, I’ll be in the bathroom working
Highlife Artist of the Year at the 2018
with) and, strumming it wistfully,
on a new song,” he says. “All the
Greater Accra Music Awards and
he proceeds to sing a song about
props to Jehovah. I take inspira-
named Urban Highlife Music of the
me he has made up on the spot.
tion from the things around me and
Year at last year’s Highlife Awards.
Chances are slim this improvised
before you know it’s flowing.”
track that welcomes me to Ghana
Kumi sees these achievements as groundwork for even greater
and hopes our interview will be a
New album
“beautiful experience” will make his
The artist, who was born Nana Yaw
keen to continue to pay back the
new album due out later this year,
Kumi in Accra’s Ablekuma district, is
faith the company has showed
but I think it has got hit written all
certainly in a musical flow state right
in him.
over it.
now. He tells me he has enough
success with Zylofon and he is
He goes on to tell me the guitar
material for two albums and is in the
Collaborations
even comes with him on car journeys
middle of choosing the best of them
“Zylofon has been good to
and he’ll start playing whenever
for his debut long player for label
me,” he says. “Music is not just
Zylofon Media, the creative arts
about singing. It’s a package.
company at whose headquarters in
Your branding counts. I love
East Legon we hold the interview.
to be around creativity and
Kumi, whose music is melodious
there are lots of beautiful
mixture of highlife young and old
musicians to collaborate
with added elements of Afro-fusion,
with here [‘Brown Sugar’
was Zylofon’s first signing – a five-
features the rapping
year deal that handed the artist a
talents of labelmate
new Hyundai Sonata saloon car,
Obibini] that I can
a house in East Legon and US$
introduce to
100,000. The partnership has proved
highlife.
a commercial success, spawning hits
There is
such as ‘Brown Sugar’ and last year’s
much
I had a friend who was recording in a studio and he wanted a singer but he didn’t turn up. Out of frustration he asked me to step up 10
