Secret History : The Ghana Freedom Song

Ghana Freedom is a cult song, known to most Ghanaians under the age of 60 through the recording by E T Mensah made for Ghana's independence in 1957. The tune is irrepressible, but the story behind it is even more irrepressible than most  realize. This is a scoop for African history!  In 1977, one of the regular readers of this blog unearthed papers in Colonial Office Archive to explain the mystery.

He found a clipping from The Morning Telegraph, a Sekondi newspaper, dated 5 February 1952, which states "As an expression of solidarity between Africans of the Gold Coast and people of African descent in the West Indies, Trinidad calypso singers, headed by George Browne have composed a calypso called Freedom for Africa. The new dance song is dedicated to the Honourable Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Convention People's Party, popularly known as the CPP" ..... "the background music is provided by African drums  played by two Gold Coast Natives, Alfred Payne of Accra and Kofi Mensah of Cape Coast. The calypso has an attractive tune and should be popular among dancers as well as among supporters of the CPP". Here are four of the eight verses::


From his Ussherfort Cell, where they bolted the doors so well,
Nkrumah made his clarion call, and the people voted him one and all.

Chorus : Freedom, freedom is in the land, Friends, let us shout, Long live the CPP! Which now controls Africa's destiny. 

They called us all the verandah boys, they thought we were just a bunch of toys, But we won the right to vote at midnight hour, came out of jail and took power.

With Appiah  the ambassador, Casely Hayford the barrister, 
these two gentlemen did quite well, they got us out of the jailhouse cell.

The British MP Gammans was rude, by his dog in the mangerish attitude, 
But like the ostrich we know that man can go bury his head in the sand

Apparently several thousand records of the song were to be made and shipped to Africa, but the Colonial Office probably wasn't pleased. In those days, The Crown Agents held a monopoly of all government business and locals weren't supposed to act independently. So if a colony grew cotton, it had to buy cotton textiles from Manchester, via the CA.  In a minute preserved in CO554/595 dated 5th January 1952, officials are discussing the activities of men like "Mr Appiah of WASU" (Joe Appiah of the West African Students Union).  Making mass copies of a recording which criticized the government would not go down well. No-one really knows what happened to the first pressing of Ghana Freedom, but quiet words may have been said in London, where the master tapes were. Colonialism was sinister and pernicious, even though there were many good idealists, like Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke and Stafford Cripps whose daughter Peggy married Appiah. Their son Kwame Anthony Appiah was professor of philosophy at Princeton and now has a chair at New York University.

The recording is "lost" as far as can be ascertained. Maybe someone has a copy somewhere? George Browne, aka Young Tiger, was also quite a character- here's his obit.

Fortunately, E T Mensah took up the cause. His song Ghana Freedom is the unofficial national anthem, even sixty years later. So the words "Toil of the brave and the sweat of their labours, they have brought results"remind us that independence wasn't an act of kindness on the part of the British.  Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and Malays died in order that the idea of freedom would be recognized. Democracy is a responsibility we must honour. Don't take it for granted ! It is not a game.

ET was a qualified pharmacist who worked for the government by day and had a huge career in hilife music at night. As he rose higher, he played less until his retirement, when he went back to hi life. In the months before his death, he was interviewed on TV about the events of 1957. He was then old and sick, but still he remembered the words to the song. 

We are "all" Ghana when we celebrate freedom. Nkrumah's government collapsed: Chaos often follows independence, especially where democracy has been so long suppressed that people don't  know how to deal with it. But the principle stands : all people have the right to self determination. These days we're facing a retreat from the very concept of democracy, when electors place their faith in demagogues. Extremism is not democracy. Real democracy comes when people take their rights seriously enough to think, evaluate and question. So democracy isn't "orderly" ? Consider the alternative.

Ghana Freedom Song

Today is Ghana Independence Day, let's us cheer !  Above the leaders of theIndepence movement. Below the iconic Ghana Freedom Song. Or rather the expurgated version, since the colonial government still managed to suppress the original. Read more about The Secret History of Ghana Freedom Song HERE  Original archive work - you won't find anywhere else !

Barenboim wins Gold, Beethoven, Olympics

Daniel Barenboim wins gold! Magnificent Beethoven 9th at BBC Prom 18. Beethoven's monument to tolerance, with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, and what they stand for : who could fail to be moved?  This was an act of faith. Whether or not music can change the world, we don't know, but if we don't believe in hope, we might as well give up.

Of course much of the appeal was  emotional. Who could not fail to be moved by the symbolism?  The finest moments came when the choruses broke into song. It was better that they were carried away with enthusiasm: much better this heartfelt freedom than polished perfection. The chorus on this occasion represented the world, voices of all kinds united for a shared ideal. Everything else fades into insignificance. This was a Prom that will live forever in history.

Perhaps the unconsionable Zil lanes served a purpose, for this time they were ferrying Barenboim, a genuine hero, to the Olympic stadium, rather than corporate freeloaders. Opening ceremonies of the Olympics are supposed to be grandiose to the point of crass, so there's no point in analysing this comic book rebranding of British history. Extravaganzas like this aren't even about taste. Like junk food, they're a great treat as long as you don't dedicate your life around them. Simon Rattle and the LSO (odd combination) let their hair down. Gosh, doesn't "real" music sound good in comparison.  But it was poignant that the NHS workers had  given so much of their time gratis, when their jobs are threatened because of cuts. No matter, everyone else volunteers, and the sponsors make profits. 

The real Olympics started when the athletes marched in. Marching behind flags always bugs me, even when the ostensible goal is co-operation. But look at the faces of these athletes. They are young, mostly non-intellectual and non-political. For them it's the biggest moment in their lives because they feel they are part oif something greater than themselves. Those who come from poor countries, without the huge machinery of state support, I admire most because they have a dream. The IOC uses them to justify its existence, though it would do lots more for sport if it used its resources in ground level support in developing nations than in a mega-advertisng beanfeast.

Nobody seemed to notice why the Ghanaians were wearing  black and red (Ghanaian colours of mourning) instead of kente finery. Their president has just died, a man almost universally admired for his decency, honour and high ideals.  He was proof that genuinely good people can rise above the shabby scams that characterize politics the world over. His death is a loss to all of us, not just to Ghana. So when the cameras turned to Daniel Barenboim, it felt like valediction. The Olympic ideal has been horribly, disgracefuly corrupted, but moments like these remind us of what could be. The Opening Ceremony was huge fun, but doesn't change the fact that there's a lot wrong with the IOC mentality. Peddling McDonald's and Coca-Cola doies nothing for health and fitness, and contradicts the idea that all nations are equal.

The Mighty Fontonfrom

From my friendly West African music buff reader here is a clip of The Mighty Fontonfrom - large drums used by royal courts in Akan-speaking Ghana. This clip shows the funeral of an important king.You might also like King Bruce welcoming Queen Elizabeth to Ghana in 1959, Adventures with a balafon and Ewe drumming.

5 million Ghanaians will go gay

"This is the day, 5 million Ghanaians will go gay. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will be here that special day. We'll drink and dance the whole day and put on kente fine [Ghanaian woven cloth] on that Thursday 12th November 1959."

Chorus : "May God bless this fine Thursday, when all Ghana will go gay. Elizabeth we love you, akwaba wa wa too [Ashanti welcome] "

"Seven long years we waited since Co-ro-na-tion, to Canada and then Nigeria, she brought jubilation. Now hear the drummers thumping on the mighty fontonfrom, the Queen has come at last to Ghana from United Kingdom,"

"With one accord we welcome you to Ghana. The people are rejoicing, from  Axim to Bolgatanga. From our leader Dr Nkrumah to the lowest in the land We all join this song of love, we know you'll understand. "

The song is by King Bruce and The Black Beats, a big Ghanaian highlife band. King Bruce (1922-98) was well educated and spent several years in London, returning to Ghana where he became a senior civil servant. John Collins, an authority on West African music (who also plays in highlife bands) interviewed King Bruce about his dual careers.

"At first the opposition from my employers came in hints. Then in 1967 the opposition came in black and white as a result of a letter I received from the government. It was from the head of the Administrative Civil Service and they told me that I had now got to the stage where I was due for promotion from assistant to full principal secretary and that the only thing that stood in my way was my dance band playing. So I had to decide whether to continue playing or accept promotion. I replied that I had commitments to play up to Easter 1968, but that from April and thereafter I would comply with the undertaking and wouldn't play in public anymore. .....I was very much annoyed because I had always believed that it was the actual playing in a band that sharpens your faculties and brings new ideas. When you sit down doing nothing you don't create new music. So the ban on my playing hurt me very much as I had to sacrifice a lot to play music and had always wanted to pursue it and make something out of it." 
 

Madam Butterfly in real life.

Strictly speaking, Madam Butterfly isn't "about" Japan. Japan is an exotic context, building upon Europe's fascination with things oriental. This fascination with alternatives to mainstrean western culture had a huge impact on the development of western music and art. To Puccini's credit, he took the trouble to find out as much as he could about Japan even though there are things in the opera which aren't historically accurate. It tells little more about real Japanese society than Gilbert and Sullivan. The important thing is that Puccini is psycholgically accurate.

Moreover, Puccini picks up on the basic premise of imperialism that that some cultures are "superior" and have a right to exploit others. Lt. Pinkerton is the ultimate colonialist. For him, the east gives him the freedom to behave in a way he wouldn't dare at home. Ther locals don't matter, nor their culture. They exist for his own use, not as themselves. In the end he takes Butterfly's child, denying her her one comfort and identity as a mother, and foisting a perpetual reminder onto his new wife that she wasn't the mother of his first child. Sexist creep. Few, however, question the assumption that the child might be better off in America. But the fact is that the US was a racist society. Ask blacks and Native Americans. Orientals were seen as The Yellow Peril, almost as non-humans, and a threat to white values. In parts of Canada and the US, intermarriage was forbidden by law. Mixed race kids didn't fit in. So the idea that Pinkerton is somehow redeeming himself isn't true. He's an imperialist who thinks that non-white cultures are inherently inferior, so taking the kid is a further insult.  Any cross culture adoption is fraught with issues, but a man as insentive as Pinkerton will probably never learn. He's even more of blind bigot than the opera portrays.

Non-western cultures were a lot more enlightened than the Pinkertons of this world then and now realize. The Japanese, for example, absorbed change readily. Much of Japanese culture stemmed from China. In the 16th century, hundreds of thousands converted to Christianity. It wassn't just the introduction of Portuguese guns and cannon that interested them. Then the revolution of the Meiji, when Japan transformed from feudal to modern within a few years. The Japanese even adopted colonialism, assuming that if the west could demand concessions from China, so could they. They were nearer, after all, and needed the natural resoures. One of the ironies of the Second World War is that it took the Japanese invasion to end western control of China. Obviously core values don't change but Japanese culture's a lot more adaptive than many.

But not all colonials were Pinkertons. British India isn't typical because British society was exported wholesale. Prior to the arrival of Memsahibs and the High Raj, people mixed. Millions of Madam Butterfly situations that weren't necessarily exploitive, as the number of Anglo-Indians and Luso-Indians indicate. People are people ! From the shores of Africa to the shores of Japan, hundreds of mixed race communities, which developed their own identity and sub-culture. First-generation mixed race had something to turn to, even if it was never easy being different. (that's why anyone who mknows Asia will know there was never, ever an ur-Butterfly).

A while back, there was TV documentary in which a British actor traced his origins. He'd assumed his ancestress in what is now Ghana, was exploited, but it turned out that she was a prosperous businesswoman who'd had a family with a Dutchman. He didn't abandon her and left money in his will to his children. Millions more stories like that, all over Asia and Africa. As one Eurasian super achiever told me, "We have to try harder because we have to prove ourselves". Fundamentally, it's just not true that mixed race situations are prostitution arrangements doomed to failure. That's "colonial thinking" implcitly assuming the inferiority of "lesser breeds" (as they were actually called once) . Obviously there were horrible things, because that's the way the world is. But the idea that non-whites are vaguely inferior, persists. Even now mixed race communities are dismissed by those who think in simplistic black and white terms (sic). It's a throwback to colonial racism, even if it's completely unconscious. Mixed race sub cultures are  important because they show the way ahead in a world that's becoming increasingly mixed. Trouble is, they're not studied properly because they don't fit easy classification.

Click on photo to enlarge. Plenty more on this site about cross culture, yellowface, Japan, mixed culture and stereotypes.

The secret history of the Ghana Freedom Song

Ghana Freedom is a cult song, known to most Ghanaians under the age of 60 through the recording by E T Mensah made for Ghana's independence in 1957. The tune is irrepressible, but the story behind it is even more irrepressible than most  realize. This is a scoop for African history!  In 1977, one of the regular readers of this blog unearthed papers in Colonial Office Archive to explain the mystery.

He found a clipping from The Morning Telegraph, a Sekondi newspaper, dated 5 February 1952, which states "As an expression of solidarity between Africans of the Gold Coast and people of African descent in the West Indies, Trinidad calypso singers, headed by George Browne have composed a calypso called Freedom for Africa. The new dance song is dedicated to the Honourable Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Convention People's Party, popularly known as the CPP" ..... "the background music is provided by African drums  played by two Gold Coast Natives, Alfred Payne of Accra and Kofi Mensah of Cape Coast. The calypso has an attractive tune and should be popular among dancers as well as among supporters of the CPP". Here are four of the eight verses::


From his Ussherfort Cell, where they bolted the doors so well,
Nkrumah made his clarion call, and the people voted him one and all.

Chorus : Freedom, freedom is in the land, Friends, let us shout, Long live the CPP! Which now controls Africa's destiny. 

They called us all the verandah boys, they thought we were just a bunch of toys, But we won the right to vote at midnight hour, came out of jail and took power.

With Appiah  the ambassador, Casely Hayford the barrister, 
these two gentlemen did quite well, they got us out of the jailhouse cell.

The British MP Gammans was rude, by his dog in the mangerish attitude, 
But like the ostrich we know that man can go bury his head in the sand

Apparently several thousand records of the song were to be made and shipped to Africa, but the Colonial Office probably wasn't pleased. In those days, The Crown Agents held a monopoly of all government business and locals weren't supposed to act independently. So if a colony grew cotton, it had to buy cotton textiles from Manchester, via the CA.  In a minute preserved in CO554/595 dated 5th January 1952, officials are discussing the activities of men like "Mr Appiah of WASU" (Joe Appiah of the West African Students Union).  Making mass copies of a recording which criticized the government would not go down well. No-one really knows what happened to the first pressing of Ghana Freedom, but quiet words may have been said in London, where the master tapes were. Colonialism was sinister and pernicious, even though there were many good idealists, like Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke and Stafford Cripps whose daughter Peggy married Appiah. Their son Kwame Anthony Appiah is professor of philosophy at Princeton.

The recording is "lost" as far as can be ascertained. Maybe someone has a copy somewhere? George Browne, aka Young Tiger, was also quite a character- here's his obit.  E T Mensah, who made the recording that filled the gap left by Young Tiger's song, is even more fascinating. He was a qualified pharmacist who worked for the government by day and had a huge career in hilife music at night.

Steve Reich, eat your heart out! Ewe drumming

Eat your heart out Steve Reich! These are ordinary village kids in Ghana just having fun. They are so young yet look how they respond to the music and how subtle and natural their gestures are. And with each plateau in the drumming, the kids pick up on the different rhythms. Then each set builds up to an elaborate, intricate dance, and then back to pairs again. Thank the Ewe people, from whom Steve Reich learned about drumming in the first place. Watch the baby who's already picking up the moves, though he's barely 2.

Adventures with a Balafon

A balafon is a type of African xylophone. They come in all sizes. There are even huge "orchestral" versions played by three men together at one time. They're made from slats of wood cured and hardened for pitch, then strung together. Usually, large gourds are added below the slats for extra resonance. They're played with hammers. Here's a link to African Safari, a guide to African xylophone culture - several video and sound clips of different types.

Balafons and xylophones are common in central and west Africa, but this photo was taken in Johannesberg in the 1920's (look at the audience, click to enlarge for detail). The version in this photo is unusual because the instrument's been adapted so the man can play it lying down. Maybe he had a bad back. This instrument's small and portable so maybe he was a travelling musician.

Another story about balafons : Olivier Messiaen wanted to experiment with one in the late 1940's. He'd recently had the usual father-son scrap with Boulez, who, by way of making peace, tracked down a good balafon (quite a large one) and carried it across Paris and up into the organ loft at La Trinité. The source of this story is Pierre-Laurent Aimard who heard it first hand from Messiaen himself, who was thrilled and delighted.

African Xylophones from Adam Martyn on Vimeo.

London is The Place For Me Calypso

Enid Blyton's towns full of gollies represent one response to West Indian immigration. So hearing about things from a West Indian point of view is an antidote. When the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in 1948, TV cameras were waiting for an immigrant from Trinidad called Lord Kitchener. A reporter with the plummy BBC accent of the time asks him "I am told you are the King of Calypso". And Kitch promptly bursts into song ! Here's the full song complete with trumpet backing and the chimes of Big Ben.

One of the regular readers here, the guy with masses of West African LPs, suggested the 4 CD set from Honest Jon's Records in 2003, "London is the Place for Me". (can also be downloaded on amazon). Lord Kitchener is there, Lord Beginner and King Timothy, The West African Rhythm Brothers, Ambrose Adeloya Campbell. Such lively, inventive creative music, so vivacious and so irrepressible - what a heady mix it was. There are songs like "I was there at the Coronation", and Cricket Victory, with its amazing chorus "those little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine" (cricketers, 1950), and funnies like the song about a guy cheating on his wife whose girlfriend steals the wife's nightie! Songs about jazz subcultures like "Gerrard Street" (100 club not Chinatown). These guys are sharp, too and deal straight out with issues like race prejudice, poverty, tough landladies, mixed marriage. Here is Lord Beginner on the General Election (1950)


One song is a kind of social document. After a long grey winter, Carnival would be a good thing, but there's no carnival in Britain in those days. The story goes that some guys were playing for themselves and for some reason started walking along playing in the streets. Crowds followed. Notting Hill was born!

There were already colonies of Africans in London, and there was cross-fusion that way, too. On the later CDs in the set many songs aren't in English but apparently just as witty if you understand Yoruba or Asante. Great music ! Click HERE for more music, including Kitch's tribute to Ghana Freedom song. "Ghana is the name, we wish to proclaim ! We will be jolly, merry and gay, the 6th of March, Independence Day". It sounds more hi-life than calypso but that's fine!

Ghana Goes Gay For Obama

Ecstatic crowds greet President Obama in Ghana. Ghanaians are ebullient and "go gay", as they used to say in the 1950's, when they have something to celebrate. And they've got lots to celebrate. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to gain independence. It's one of the more prosperous countries in Africa, with good standards of education, health and security. So it's not surprising that Ghana´s musicians have been writing songs of welcome ("akwaaba" in the Twi language) for President Barack Obama, and for what he represents beyond himself. For the most prominent of these, Blakk Rasta's "Barack Obama" click here and then on "barak obama" button on the web page)

Obama is not the first head of state whose visit to Ghana has been celebrated by Ghanaian musicians. Bill Clinton and George W Bush seem to have been given a miss, but when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited in November 1959 Ghanaians "went gay" with King Bruce & The Black Beats´ track "The Queen´s Visit".

Yet what Ghanaians are celebrating has world significance. It is symbolic because it connects the people of all Africa with those in North and South America, and the Caribbean, whose ancestors were taken as slaves. When Michelle and his daughters visit the old slave fort, it will be a spiritual akwabaa, homecoming, for millions who never returned.

But the visit is equally important as an expression of the diversity of cultures around the world which have sprung from the African diaspora. Where would North American music be without jazz? Or Brazilian culture without African influence? Or the Caribbean, and Black Britain ? There is an African sensibility that spans regional divides.

This song "The Birth of Ghana" was recorded in London in November 1956 by Lord Kitchener. The name's wryly ironic. This isn't Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the imperialist, but a Trinidadian calypso star who lived in postwar London, as did Kwame Nkrumah. So non-West African musicians were involved in the celebration of Ghana´s independence.
This clip is a classic example of the important crossovers in styles and personnel between black musicians from the Caribbean and Africa in London in the 1950s so carefully documented in the four-part "London is the Place for Me" series of CDs issued by Honest Jon´s Records.

Nkrumah was, of course, a passionate advocate of Pan-Africanism. So it's wonderful to mark the Obamas' visit to Ghana with this song. Watch out in the video for snaps of Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and WEB DuBois. The post-colonial era was full of idealism. Nkrumah would be proud of what modern Ghana has achieved.

Ghanaian popular music has often touched on social issues or noteworthy political events. In the 1950s the highlife pioneer ET Mensah and his band celebrated the Ghanaian independence struggle and its heroes with "Ghana Freedom" in 1957 and Kwame Nkrumah´s pioneering attempts at pan-African union with "Ghana-Guinea-Mali", another song popular at the time.

Linking popular music with political comment did not always come easy: when the government got wind of the fact that "Ghana Freedom" name-checked among the heroes of independence politicians who were in opposition and out of favour with Nkrumah´s Convention People´s Party, Decca was forced to pull a run of 10,000 discs (big sales were to be expected in West Africa) and its engineers did a hasty edit, deleting the offending sections.

(Selections of ET Mensah and King Bruce were re-issued on the RetroAfric label a few years ago and are stil available at http://www.retroafric.com/

Music while you work - Ghana post office

Throughout the world, but especially in Africa, people make boring work creative by turning it into music. Here are postal workers in Ghana, where post office workers have turned tedium into an art form. Musically, there's a much better version below, but this clip shows how their actions turn into sounds.

This first clip comes from a film made by John Collins, of the University of Ghana in Legon, Accra. He's a musician who has been playing in African bands. for years. He's just published a new book about Fela Kuti, the great star of African hi-life and Afro beat, whom he knew well and played with. Buy direct from the publisher, the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, or here. Fela Kuti was a character, and the book is filled with personal observations and photos never seen before.

I've just discovered a goldmine of West African music and culture, some of the recordings from the 1920's and 30's. So keep reading, there will be more to come.

Kofi Agawu Renaissance Mahlerian

Kofi Agawu, professor at Harvard, is a "rare scholar whose professional interests cross traditional boundaries within musical scholarship, encompassing music theory, ethnomusicology, and historical musicology".

He's a Mahler specialist, contributing the chapter "Prolonged counterpoint in Mahler" in Stephen Hefling's important Mahler Studies of 1997. He's also written extensively on musical analysis and theory. What takes him outside the realm of the average academic, though, is that his scholarship is informed by much wider sources than western music alone. Indeed, his work goes to the very heart of what music is, a means of communication that springs from specifics of relationships within society and language.

Agawu's "Music as Discourse : Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music" was issued late last year from OUP. "Working at the nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music philosophy and aesthetics, Agawu presents a synthetic and innovative approach to musical meaning which argues deftly for the thinking of music as a discourse in itself--composed not only of sequences of gestures, phrases, or progressions, but rather also of the very philosophical and linguistic props that enable the analytical formulations made about music as an object of study. The book provides extensive demonstration of the pertinence of a semiological approach to understanding the fully-freighted language of romantic music, stresses the importance of a generative approach to tonal understanding, and provides further insight into the analogy between music and language."

Translation perhaps is that as music is a culturally defined means of expression. Agawu's perspectives range widely, well beyond the limited confines of one cultural assumption. The western classical tradition is only one thread in the richly woven fabric of human creativity. Agawu is Ewe, from a distinctive, thriving culture in Southern Ghana and Togo. Steve Reich's explorations in African drumming were based on Ewe tradition, but there's infinitely more to Ewe culture than Steve Reich. Check out numerous books, CDs, DVDs. Many of them by Agawu, even.

Anyone can talk about multi cultural, multi discipline. Few can actually do it from within. For me, Agawu's work is interesting because he's at the top of western music studies, yet he's not tied into one way of thinking about music, or society for that matter. Here is a link to the new book, Music as Discourse.

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/MusicTheoryAnalysisComposition/?view=usa&ci=9780195370249

Agawu means a lot to me because "comparative culture" or whatever you could call it, has been my whole life. It's a field that's rarely explored because most people just don't imbibe multiple cultures and instinctively pick up on the subtle influences. Yet this world is increasingly becoming a global network, society is changing faster than we can comprehend. In a tiny way this blog is doing something. Please look on the labels for history and especially my special subject, South China and Macau, which for centuries was the interface between many different cultures, and in the process, acquired its own polyglot identity. It's something most people know nothing about, so what's on this blog is pretty unique. I don't know anything about Africa but my best mate has Ghanaian roots (Ewe, too) so there are a few things here on Ghana too.