Palm-wine music


Palm-wine music is a West African musical genre. It evolved among the Kru people of Liberia, who used Portuguese guitars brought by sailors, combining local melodies and rhythms with Trinidadian calypso to create a "light, easy, lilting style". Palm-wine music was named after a drink, palm wine, made from the naturally fermented sap of the oil palm, which was drunk at gatherings where early African guitarists played.
Palm-wine music was first popularized by Ebenezer Calendar & His Maringar Band, who recorded many popular songs in the 1950s and early 1960s. Soukous and highlife were influenced by Palm-wine music. Though still somewhat popular, the genre is no longer as renowned as it once was. Other renowned palm-wine musicians include Koo Nimo, S. E. Rogie, Abdul Tee-Jay and Super Combo.
Agya Koo Nimo is another renowned Ghanaian singer who is popularly referred to as the king of palm-wine music. The "grandfather of highlife" as often called uses his music to tell life stories which has greatly influenced the Ghanaian and other west African music scenes. He was awarded the lifetime achievers award at the University of Education Winneba in Ghana.