Revitalisation and Sustainability of Indigenous Akan Female Music in Ghana: A Study of “Adenkum”

Abstract

This thesis examines the revival and sustainability of indigenous Akan female musical traditions. It focuses on adenkum music to understand how various existing and emerging ensembles revitalise the performance practices of the adenkum music in contemporary Ghanaian musical soundscape, which consequently fosters its sustainability. In indigenous Ghanaian communities, women have always played important roles in various contexts of music and cultural traditions. One such musical tradition is the adenkum, which, besides its function as entertainment, also serves as a communicative and educational tool. A recent phenomenon in the Ghanaian musical soundscape reveals that Ghanaian traditional musical practices such as the palm wine, borborbor, and Adowa are being re-engaged and rapidly being accepted by the youth. However, personal engagement and interaction with the adenkum musical practice reveal that a lot of music consumers or audience think of the adenkum as “old school”, “archaic”, “primitive”, and “not very interesting”. However, the Ghana Dance Ensemble, situated at the University of Ghana Campus, Legon, and the Dɔkɔdɔkɔ (pronounced; “dorkordorkor”) Ensemble, at the University of Education, Winneba, include the adenkum in their performances. In this thesis, I examine these ensembles' performance practices to understand how they re-engage the adenkum music to revitalise and sustain it in contemporary Ghanaian soundscape. In doing this, I discovered that the primary means by which the adenkum is sustained is by continuous engagement with the musical practice and/or revitalising. I further teased out issues of the revitalisation and sustainability that emerged as a result of re-engaging the adenkum.