Indigenous Musical Culture in Ghana: A Contemporary Perspective

Abstract

The topicality of this article is based on the indigenous musical culture in Ghana. It was an investigation into the cultural values embedded in the practice of musical genres in these contemporary times. It takes a look at some extra musical discourses embedded in cultural framework and highlights some factors that have retained some of the cultural values in Ghana in spite of extinction of some of the indigenous musical traditions. The paper concludes that the existence of foreign-influenced musical styles in Ghana culminating the use of elements of Ghanaian traditional music to form new recreational and popular styles, obviously has had a tremendous effect on indigenous music demonstrating the trend of musical culture in Ghana. It is appropriate that the introduction of cultural festivals in Ghanaian schools is strengthened to ensure that indigenous music does not face a total extinction.