Kyekyeku’s Funky Pangolin is an unrelenting highlife masterpiece... and then some

6 Oct 2022 - 14:58

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Amid all the Afrobeats frenzy, Ghanaian guitar wizard Kyekyeku is winning at revamping West African folk sounds. His work, an urgent, evocative and lavishly rewarding sonic enterprise, harvests the time-honoured rhythms of palm wine blues, highlife, Afrobeat and Afrofunk, enhanced with just the right amount of modern fusions.

Kyekyeku. Photo: Fabien Perry

Funky Pangolin, his latest album with the Super Opong Stars, is driven by the same incentives that have defined his style, leading to the record’s nostalgic colour and horn-and-guitar-fueled sparkle.

The artist, now a veteran in his own right, has developed a keen ear, borrowing influences from the historical innovators of his sound. Thus, he has summoned his technical models, doyens like Ebo Taylor, Koo Nimo and African Brothers Band, whose pristine storytelling and clinical, percussive medleys swiftly elevated them to highlife patriarchs. It also leaks the Afro-rock essence of Osibisa and the singular jazzy grooves of Hugh Masekela, as heard on the talk box-powered ‘Nakupenda’ and wistful ‘To See The World’, respectively.

Though it comes in at a concise eight songs, Funky Pangolin is a clever and richly layered snapshot of Ghanaian social life across multiple decades, thrusting listeners into a roller coaster of sentiments and inducing sprightly frolicking and deep introspection via the conscious treatment of everything from a happy Africa to a tragic Africa. The themes are woven through a tapestry of folklore, African mythology and activism.

Like the scaly mammal it is named after, the record hangs on to an unlikely charm and, at least to this reviewer, listens better at night. The album also retains the vintage appeal of vinyl. Some parts feel abrupt, crackly, and poppy – but are always alive; always thriving with seasoned but ever-fresh thrill.

Two-time Grammy nominee Rocky Dawuni joins Kyekyeku in a beautiful exchange on ‘Africa Till I Die’, reminiscent of the Yamoah's Band classic ‘Serwaa Akoto’ and the focus track of the Funky Pangolin. The album’s sole guest, the Afro-roots star returns Kyekyeku’s aching vocals, centred on a constant obligation to defend their affection for the continent, despite negative Western media framing and agenda setting. “Even when they paint you a picture of starving and hunger/ nobody fit to put asunder, we keep on going stronger,” a portion of the hook sings.

The artistic credo of highlife is unbending originality that, many argue, accounts for its immortality. To introduce ‘Adwoa Obe’, Kyekyeku plays a speech by late highlife maestro Nana Ampadu, whom he describes as “the biggest reason I came to adore the beauty of guitar-band highlife from Ghana.” These words, teeming with abiding cultural relevance, emphasise the creative purity of indigenous Ghanaian highlife. “The Ghanaian indigenous highlife music is rhythmic, spiritual, superb and unique. And I’m proud that I’m making my own music the Ghanaian indigenous highlife way.”

Despite seemingly falling off the surface of the mainstream, efforts by artists like Kyekyeku demonstrate that the good highlife album – the one that captures prowling, ancestral guitars and definitive 70s West African symphonic elements that connive for a resounding auditory experience – will always have a place.