Lexington Books
Pages: 196
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4985-6466-3 • Hardback • July 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-6468-7 • Paperback • August 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)
978-1-4985-6467-0 • eBook • July 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
Nana Abena Amoah-Ramey is adjunct assistant professor in the Department of African American and African diaspora studies at Indiana University.
Foreword by A.B. Assensoh
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Inception of My Ideology, Formations: Research Method & Preamble
Chapter 1: Evolution and Transformation of Highlife Musical Tradition of Ghana
Chapter 2: “Her-Storical” Legacy: Female Highlife Musicians in Ghana
Chapter 3: Resistance and Survival: The Trailblazing Stories
Chapter 4: Female Musical Compositions: She Advocates & I Analyze!
Chapter 5: The New Deal: New Era of Contemporary Ghanaian Music: From Globalization to Modernization
Chapter 6: Epilogue: Future Research & Theoretical Queries & Underpinnings
Appendix 1: Ghana Travel Map
Appendix 2: Ghanaian Currency
Appendix 3: Highlife Tree
Appendix 4: Interview with Professor Kwabena Nketia
Appendix 5: Interview Photos
Appendix 6: Song Lyrics
Glossary
Bibliography
Female Highlife Performers in Ghana is a significant contribution to the scholarly study of female agency, resistance, empowerment, and liberation. Focusing on brave and remarkable women who blazed the trail from the 1960s to the current crop of female artists in the challenging landscape of the male-dominated music industry, Nana Amoah-Ramey weaves a tapestry of biographical narratives, song texts, and ethnographic descriptions onto the fabric of Ghana’s socio-economic and political aspirations and nationhood. It is a must-read text that will animate discussions among students and scholars of African music as well as the general public.
— Kwasi Ampene, University of Michigan, author of Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro
Dr. Amoah-Ramey’s multi-disciplinary research has unraveled the enormous contributions of female Ghanaian Highlife music performers. Not only does the book give the historical and cultural overview of women’s contribution to Ghanaian Highlife music performers, it also gives up-to-date insights of the new music genres they perform in Ghana today.
— Habib Iddrisu, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Dance, University of Oregon