One of Ghana's most prolific drummers; Kofi Ghanaba (Guy Warren, Kpakpo Kofi Warren Gamaliel Harding Akwei), drummer and journalist, was born 4 May 1923 and died 22 December 2008.
Taken from the Journal of African Music and Popular Culture:
As a composer, drummer, and flutist Ghanaba recorded several other long playing records, most of them in the 1950s and 1960s, among them Themes For African Drums (1958), The African Soundz of Guy Warrren of Ghana (1960), African Rhythms - The Exciting Soundz of Guy Warrren and his Talking Drums (1962), Emergent Drums (1963) and Afro-Jazz (1969). He became known in America for introducing the obonu drum to Jazz, a drum then referred to as “Talking Drum”. It had been unknown to Jazz before. Ghanaba was among the first to search for the creative possibilities of blending/and (re)connecting (African-American) Jazz with African or better Ghanaian modern popular as well as traditional music long before this became a creative powerhouse for many other musicians from Africa as well as the Americas.
In honor of his life, here's the full album Themes for African Drums - The Guy Warren Sounds (1958):
Themes for African Drums Download
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