Music of Togo

Music of West Africa
Benin Burkina Faso Cape Verde Cote d'Ivoire The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Senegal Sierra Leone Togo

Togo has produced a number of internationally known popular entertainers including King Mensah, Bella Bellow, and Jimi Hope. The country has a diverse folk tradition with more than forty ethnic groups, each with their own musical styles.

Folk music

A Togolese drum.

Togolese folk music includes a great variety of percussion-led dance music. Folk songs are typically in the Ewe, and Kabye languages. Some are also in Fon and Yoruba.^[1] There are folk songs for fishermen in the south of the country, sometimes accompanied by bells including gankogui and frikiwa. Other folk instruments include the flute and the bow.^[1]

Percussion

Drums are played all over Togo, and are used to celebrate all the major events of one's life including marriage and baptism. Drums are also used religiously, by both Christians and Muslims, and for festivals like the Expesoso or Yeke Yeke festival.^[2] There are numerous rhythms in Togo, with each area having its own special beat. There are numerous forms of drums, OxFam notes, in the Aneho district alone. These include agbadja, ageche, aziboloe, kple, amedjeame, akpesse, grekon, blekete and adamdom drums.^[3]

Dance

Dances include Kamou, Soo, Tchimou, the southern royal djokoto, the war dances kpehouhuon and atsina, the hunters' dance adewu, the stilt dance tchebe, the miming masseh, as well as regional dances like the coastal sakpate and the kaka.^[4]

Popular music

Internationally known performer King Mensah, a former performer at the Ki-Yi M'Bock Theatre in Abidjan, toured Europe and Japan before opening his own show in French Guiana and then moving to Paris and forming a band called Favaneva.^[5] Bella Bellow is Togo's best-known musician, and is often compared with South Africa's Mariam Makemba.^[6] Her career began after representing her country in 1966 at the Dakar Arts Festival.^[5] She began a career singing love-oriented ballads in 1969, when she worked with Togolese-French producer Gérard Akueson and soon appeared on French national radio and then the prestigious Olympia Music Hall.^[5] She toured across much of the world before dying in a car accident in 1973, just after recording the hit collaboration with Manu Dibango "Sango Jesus Christo".^[5] In Bellow's wake came a wave of female singers, including Mabah, Afia Mala, Fifi Rafiatou and Ita Jourias.^[5] Other musicians include Jimi Hope. Hope is known for politically incisive lyrics and an innovative rock-based style.^[5]

Hip hop is on the rise, and 2003 saw the first Togo hip hop awards ceremony.^[6]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Virtual journey through Togo, music + dance
2. ^ Virtual journey through Togo, Togolese drumming
3. ^ Virtual journey through Togo, Togolese drumming
4. ^ World Music Central
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Bensignor and Audra, pg. 435
6. ^ ^{a b} Bensignor, Francois (2006). "Benin and Togo". In Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, Jon Lusk, & Duncan Clark. The Rough Guide to World Music. 1 (3rd ed.). London: Rough Guides Ltd.. pp. 39-42. 

References

• Bensignor, François and Eric Audra. "Afro-Funksters". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 432–436. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
• "International Dance Glossary". World Music Central. Archived from the original on September 1, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050901135005/http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/staticpages/index.php/glossary. Retrieved September 7, 2005. 
• "Virtual journey through Togo, music + dance". OxFam's Cool Planet. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/ontheline/explore/journey/togo/music.htm. Retrieved September 7, 2005. 
• "Virtual journey through Togo, Togolese drumming". OxFam's Cool Planet. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/ontheline/explore/journey/togo/drums.htm. Retrieved September 7, 2005. 

External links

• (French) Audio clips: Traditional music of Togo. Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.
• Audio clips - traditional music of Togo. French National Library. Accessed November 25, 2010.