Modern Ghanaians

The name of King Ayisoba will fail to register the slightest flash of recognition on the faces of all but the most committed African music obsessive. Yet, after phenomenal cassette sales in his native land, this traditional musician (he favours the kologo, a two-string guitar) is a huge star back home. Modern Ghanaians pulls together ten of his best-known hits, that Ghana has been swinging to recently.

Ayisoba splits his attentions between straight traditional numbers such as ‘Don’t Joke to Your Father’ and material on which he marries the kologo’s sinewy lines with hiplife, that popular amalgam of highlife and hip-hop. The latter is achieved most effectively on the title-track, an irresistible groove embellished by the sharp tongue of rapper Kweku T. This isn’t a dichotomy: Ayisoba seems comfortable in either set of clothes, willing to play both the traditional artist and the musician immersing himself in the 21st century. In this respect, he brings to mind the Malian troubadour Issa Bagayogo, the ngoni-wielding techno traditionalist, though Ayisoba doesn’t quite share Bagayogo’s borderline obsessiveness with electronic trickery.