I Have My Liberty! Gospel Sounds from Accra, Ghana

Various Artists

http://www.ihavemyliberty.tumblr.com/

I Have My Liberty! Gospel Sounds from Accra, Ghana combines the unconventionality of an Alan Lomax field recording with modern microphones and modern African congregations.

Recorded between September and December of 2008 and released commercially by producer Calpin Hoffman-Williamson last month, I Have My Liberty! is an aural postcard from churches that appear to be the capitol city of Ghana’s version of storefronts.

The music is praise and worship in raw, unshackled form.  Untrained but resolute voices of congregations join with amateur but determined church musicians on electric guitar, drums and tambourine to shake the rafters with their kinetic and sonic energy.  “Onyame Ba” and “Onyama Ye Odo,” selections recorded at the Divine Healer’s Church: Nima Assembly, have a Pentecostal feel as the drummer thrashes the skins with abandon. Songs on the album are sung in English and Ghanian languages.

Hearing these recordings, and knowing the role West African religious and ceremonial music played in the genesis of the gospel sound, one wonders whether the Ghanian music heard here is a descendant of that centuries-old tradition or a reinterpretation through the filter of American gospel music, especially of the Pentecostal and Holiness worship experiences. The “Closing Worship” of Christ Believer’s Ministry includes sections that approximate plainchant or the Baptist tradition of lining-out hymns.

With the exception of “Welcome to Great Grace,” on which Rebecca Mensah sings with American gospel-pop inflection, the voices are strident but resonate with unbridled and genuine joy. Some songs seem lifted at the spur of the moment, another characteristic of sanctified church services.

I Have My Liberty! is a fascinating examination and listenable example of praise music in Accra’s urban churches. The companion website, http://www.ihavemyliberty.tumblr.com/contains photos of the churches and its people, audio samples, and extended essays on the role of worship in the communities.

The album is not yet available commercially, but it is streaming for free at ihavemyliberty.bandcamp.com.

Four of Five Stars