Ghana-Nigeria Jan. 2010

I managed to score a cheap last minute ticket to Ghana and left in the early afternoon of January 1st on a direct flight to Accra.
I arrived in the early morning of January 2nd. My friend Ken had already plugged a large "Records Wanted" advert in the biggest, national newspaper for that day and I hit the ground running. Only minutes after depositing my luggage at the hotel, Ken and I were already sitting in a taxi, speeding towards the first piles of records.

After a few days in Accra, we left for Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city in the Ashanti region from where we had received a lot of calls. On our way back, we stopped for a visit at Kwaho Bepong, a beautiful small town located on a plateau, not far from the Volta river. We had received a serious call from there and scored a large collection of incredibly well preserved afrobeat, funk and some seriously deep highlife. Not only on LP but also on 45. Finding good 45s is very rare and always a cause for celebration. We went to a small village in the bush and bought a fresh caught grasscutter (also called cane rat) which we had prepared for us on the spot over and open fire. Later, on a nightly scroll along the Volta river, a large praying mantis landed on my hand, traditionally a sign for good luck!

We stopped in Accra for only another 2 days and then chartered a car to bring us to Takoradi, a coastal town in the West the niece of legendary musician CK Mann had called us and set up a meeting with her uncle. On our way back, we stopped by Cape Coast, picked up some more vinyl and back in Accra met with another living legend: Pat Thomas who as I had hoped for gave us some clues about the whereabouts of the members of the mythical funk band Marijata. The subject Marijata shall remain on hold for now until sometime later this year.

On January 17th I took a plane to Lagos where I met with my friend Damian and together we went on a journey to a small town in Anambra state. The region prepared for local elections and the atmosphere was tense. Kidnappings were at an all time high and there were a lot of rumors about armed robbers randomly stopping buses on the highway, robbing people and taking hostages. We had no trouble reaching our destination and on the evening of the first day, when I was sitting outside the hotel, enjoying the evening sun and a couple of Star beers, some military type guys came up to me and told me they were concerned about my safety and would therefore set up a road block directly outside the hotel...

Damian had found this warehouse that was filled with records. Literally. The entire place was flooded about one to two meters high with mostly 45s, some LPs and even old 8-track tapes. No shelves, not even boxes, just records. You will have to check out the pictures below and you will understand.

We hired three helpers who cleaned out a narrow path alongside one wall by piling records into boxes and dragging them outside for us to sort through them. The warehouse belonged to a record label and distributor and about 95% of all the vinyl consisted of the label's own releases, for the most part highlife and folklore. We made sure to leave a good stack of every single release in the big shelf that stood in the middle of the mess and then just threw the rest of all these undesirable 45s onto a huge pile in front of the building. After half a day, the path was cleared down to the floor and we were able to dig ourselves through the rest of the place, from one end to the other.

The result wasn't huge but I walked away with a good stack of killer 45s including a whole bunch of stuff that I had never seen before, mostly Nigerian releases but surprisingly enough also some Ghanaian stuff.

Once we were done with this place, we took a bus back to Lagos where I spent the remainder of my stay checking up on various local record dealers. Then I took a plane back to Accra from where Ken and I followed up on various leads all over Southern Ghana.

Constantly being on the move made the time pass very fast and before I knew it, the month was over. My plane back to NYC left on January 31st and now I'm busy cleaning myself through piles and piles of fresh African vinyl. One thing is for sure: This wasn't my last trip to Africa for this year!

Click on images for a larger view:

I had brought 10.000 of these posters and we bombarded city after city with them.


CK Mann at his house in Takoradi.


Beautiful stretch of road right alongside the beach between Takoradi and Cape Coast.


A storm is brewing over Cape Coast.


Just before it started pouring down on us...


Driving up the mountains towards Kwaho Bepong.


Fresh grasscuter...


After all the hair is removed, the animal is cut into portions.


BBQ!


Almost ready... my mouth is watering just looking at the picture.


Good luck!


My friend Ken. I wouldn't have managed without him. Sometimes we had over 100 calls a day.


The difference between record shopping and record digging...


My head was about to explode.


Mining for records with Damian.