Nima, Ghana: “Fume Fume”

Here are some videos and photos from my time at the Nima Cultural Center in Accra, Ghana. Percussionist Stephen Osono, who leads West African dance and drumming ensembles in Ghana and Norway, taught me “Fume Fume” in the Ga language, a folk song traditionally sung by women while washing cowries. (I got a little distracted when about two dozen members of the local women’s collective poured into the NCC!)

Stephen Osono & Kavita Shah perform “Fume Fume” at the Nima Cultural Center in Accra, Ghana.

We also played the “kpetse” rhythm in isolation on the kpanlogo drum (also known as the “palm drum”) and the cowbell, typically used in Ga music:

Stephen Osono & Kavita Shah practice the “kpetse” drumming pattern at the Nima Cultural Center in Accra, with Stephen playing the kpanlogo drum and Kavita the cowbell.

Nima is one the poorest neighborhoods in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. Just a 15-minute drive from the skyscrapers of glitzy Osu, Nima suffers from inadequate sewage, electricity, and housing facilities. It’s generally thought of as an unsafe part of town, but thanks to my guides Charles and Stephen, I felt completely at home here, and was fascinated by its cosmopolitan makeup: Nima’s inhabitants include people of different faiths (many are Muslim), ethnic groups, and nationalities, including people from rural Ghana and other West African countries. Nima is also known for its sweeping markets, where one can find nearly anything imaginable, from spices to produce to live animals to love potions.

Clockwise L-R: (1) Potions on sale at the market in Nima include “Pregnancy,” “Stop Evil,” and “Curse Breaker”; (2) goats roam the streets of Nima alongside open sewers; (3) a local singer from the North of Ghana works on her album at Nima’s New World Studio; (4) an intersection is called “Small London,” reflecting the neighborhood’s diversity.

Interestingly, it was not so easy to access “traditional” Ghanaian music in Accra, as the musical scene there is increasingly dominated by more popular forms of music like highlife and its progeny hiplife, gospel, reggae, and even rap (which I’ll get to in a later post). So it was quite a special experience for me to discover aspects of Ghana’s rich drumming and dance rituals in Nima, a place that reflects the complexity and diversity of Ghanaian music.

Members of the local women’s collective rest in the shade before a meeting at the Nima Cultural Center.

Note: All photos by Kavita Shah. Thank you to Charles Sablah and Stephen Osono for being invaluable resources during my visit to Nima.