This film documents a fifty-year artistic career, from Accra’s streets to Ghana’s villages to international TV. In fifteen puppet shows, Mr. Abbey, joined by musicians and filmmakers, chronicles Ghana’s music since independence in 1957. The marionettes perform ethnic songs, dances and stories, but equally the sounds of highlife, Afro-jazz, Afro-rock, reggae, and contemporary hiplife. The soundtrack includes historical documents from radio, TV and broadcast, and LP, as well as new compositions commissioned and performed to playback.
Steven Feld
Steven Feld (born August 20, 1949) is an American ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, and linguist, who worked for many years with the Kaluli (Bosavi) people of Papua New Guinea. He earned a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.