Several factors contributed to the collapse of many vibrant music bands that dominated Ghana's music space.

Back in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, these music groups made up of instrumentalists and singers played shows across the country, and toured the world, making people appreciate band music.

Ghanaian music traveled through the works of Osibisa, The Tempos Live Band, African Brothers Band, Kakaiku Band, City Boys Band, Okukuseku Band, Apollo High Kings International Band, Nakorex, and many others.

Looking at their achievements, one wonders what might have pushed bands out of the local industry.

Contemporary Ghanaian band Fra! is on a mission to resurrect band culture with inspiration from their predecessors.

The Band Fra!, in an interview with Paula Amma Broni on GhanaWeb's Talkertainment, listed some of the factors that killed the vibe with calls to bring back the love.

George Gogoe, leader of the Afrofusion band, shared stories that have been told of the challenges native bands faced in Ghana.

"Back in the day when you were asked to name your favourite artiste, you will definitely mention the name of a band. We learnt that in the 80s there was a little bit of unrest, the coup d'état and military regimes. Some of the band's music was political, there were curfews and so the bands couldn't perform. Most of the active bands then left Ghana for Nigeria, other African countries and Europe.

"That sort of killed the band culture around that time and fast-forward, electronic music stated, the beats and all of that...that also contributed a big role to band music going extinct at some point in time until recently when the Ebo Taylors, Pat Thomas, Gyedu Blay Ambolley picked it up again," Gogoe narrated.

Guitarist Selorm Dornyoh, who detailed the mission of Fra!, noted that progress has been made in reaching a large audience with their sounds.

"We look back at Ghana's story and we realize that most of Ghana's music from the 80s, 70s and 60s have been born in band culture. We've had a lot of bands coming out from Ghana and making a good name for themselves, the most prominent being Osibisa, The Ramblers, ET Mensah, The African Brothers Band, so many of them...as of now, not many of them are active, I can only think of Pat Thomas and Kwashibu Area Band.

"We don't have any current crop contemporary bands doing the same thing they were doing back then, the same impact they were making back then. So, we decided to take it upon ourselves to be the guinea pigs in this case and our little experiment have blown up and you are looking at it now as Fra!," he told GhanaWeb.

The young band birthed in 2015 has produced hit songs and graced some big stages in Europe.

According to them, these foreigners love Ghanaian authentic highlife music, which is the root of their songs.




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