Tag Archives: ghana

Honkout!

The La Drivers Union Por Por Group, with Steve Feld: Oko Sai, Nii Amarh Amartey, Victoria Mensah, Feld, Nii Ashai Ollennu (seated at Por Por engine), Adwoa Kyere, Mabel Odoi, Nii Tetteh Boye La, Adjetey Sowah

Award-winning ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, linguist, documentarian, sound artist and ecologist, musician, and UNM professor Steven Feld encountered Por Por (pronounced paaw paaw), Ghana’s honk horn music, 20-some years ago and has continued to work with the musicians, documenting this unique genre. The exclusive players of this squeeze-bulb klaxon horn music are the drivers in the La branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (La is a district of Accra). In his most recent effort on their behalf, Feld combines them with the Texas Horns, a preeminent U.S. soul, blues, and roots trio. The result is an astonishingly strange and familiar hybrid.

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