Honouring Christopher Kobla Dewornu

Abstract

Christopher Kobla Dewornu, a retired Inspector General of Police for Ghana and a member of the Council of State, is a multi-talented musician-composer, lead singer and drummer. Since his national political responsibilities overshadowed his public musical practice and visibility, a concert was organised in November 2016 in Accra to honour his contribution to the musical arts, while also raising an awareness of his musical impact on his community. This article focuses on the concert in which he performed a selection of his oral-based compositions with Christian texts, which were set to Anlo Ewe traditional melodic idioms within a domesticated environment. Dewornu also sang a few Akpalu songs that inspired audience participation. Restricted by his political work environment, involving moderate social distancing, Dewornu had to navigate his ethnic, professional and religious identities to strategically shape his public musical life.