A Great Man Has Gone Out:
The Funeral of Ghanaian Xylophonist Kakraba Lobi

A Great Man Has Gone Out: The Funeral of Ghanaian Xylophonist Kakraba Lobi

On Friday July 20th, 2007 Kakraba Lobi (a.k.a. Tijan Siinyiri) a remarkable musician and educator, as well as the foremost exponent of the Lobi funeral xylophone tradition, passed away in the Ridge Hospital in Accra, setting in motion an unforgettable series of events centered around his funeral ceremony. In life, Kakraba Lobi’s contribution to African music remains unmistakable, as he introduced Lobi music and culture to the rest of the world through international tours and teaching appointments at the foremost research institutions for African music. In death, Kakraba Lobi inspired an elaborate funeral ceremony stretching from Ghana’s urban center of Accra, to his remote village of Saru in the northwest of Ghana. These funeral observances were an occasion for the most respected xylophonists to pay homage to this master and facilitate his passage into the ancestral domain. They were also permeated with discussions about who will rise to take the place of this renowned artist, both as a master xylophonist, and international culture-bearer wielding considerable economic power. In this film, I remember Kakraba Lobi by sharing my documentation of the extraordinary performances from his funeral. I also introduce several younger xylophonists, who each bring their unique experiences to bear on the maintenance and development of this musical culture. By interfacing several biographical studies of individual artists, I begin to piece together a representation of Lobi musical culture anchored in the unalienable specifics of personal experience, yet supported through a constellation of interrelated perspectives.

A Brief Chronology of Kakraba Lobi’s Life:

‣ Born Tijan Siinyiri, Kakraba Lobi was the son of rural farmers living in the town of Saru in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district of northwestern Ghana.
‣ A man of many talents, Kakraba was not content to remain a rural farmer as his parents had hoped, and decided to migrate to the cocoa belt of southern Ghana in search of greater economic opportunity.
‣ Employed as a farmer in Kokoti village near Offinso town, Kakraba soon left agricultural work altogether and learned Kente weaving from a friend.
‣ When this proved to be an unstable source of income, Kakraba left Kokoti in 1955 for Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana.
‣ A series of mishaps in Kumasi left Kakraba broke and unemployed, motivating him to travel to the capital city of Accra in search of an uncle, who lent Kakraba a kogyil, the Lobi funeral xylophone.
‣ Kakraba began playing this xylophone on the streets of Accra, creating a unique blend of adapted Ga and Twi songs, as well as the traditional Lobi xylophone repertoire, which he absorbed from his uncles as a child.
‣ In 1957, Kakraba was invited by A. A. Mensah to perform for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation for the first time.
‣ By 1961, Prof. J. H. Kwabena Nketia had invited Kakraba to teach Lobi xylophone music at the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana, Legon, where Kakraba would be appointed for the next two decades.
‣ In 1963, Kakraba Lobi took his first international performance tour to Rome and Jerusalem.
‣ Since 1963 Kakraba has toured over 25 countries, performing and teaching through numerous institutions and venues, including UCLA and Wesleyan University with the help of longtime friend, student, collaborator, and accomplished percussionist Valerie Naranjo.
‣ Over the course of the 34 years that Kakraba was active as a xylophonist, Kakraba made several commercial recordings, including Ghana: The World of Kakraba Lobi (1995), Song of Legaa (2000), and Song of Niira (2001).
‣ On Friday, July 20th, 2008, Kakraba Lobi died of pneumonia at Ridge Hospital in Accra, Ghana.

The Context of Kakraba Lobi's Funeral

The northwest of Ghana, through which the Black Volta extends in a network or rivers, is the heart of xylophone music in Ghana. The Lobi peoples of this region, as well as adjacent areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, practice several related but distinct traditions of xylophone music, each based upon musical texts that contain historical and cultural accounts of life in the region. Xylophone music is so important to these communities because it accompanies and facilitates all major life events, negotiates relationships with the otherworldly, represents a viable means of economic prosperity, chronicles the history of the region, constitutes a major form of artistic expression, and remains a source of cultural pride and heritage. The potential located in xylophone music, for cultural, historical, and ethnomusicological insight into Lobi culture is remarkable, and thus my research, consisting several interwoven biographical accounts of Lobi xylophonists, depicted through seamless documentation and long-term involvement in Lobi communities, provides insight into all three, portraying xylophone music as a nexus of Lobi culture.

Kakraba Lobi performing at the University of Ghana, Legon.

At the surface of these issues is a concern for the living community of musicians, and their ability to economically thrive and artistically flourish while keeping traditional song forms and meanings intact. For some musicians, this means navigating global networks of musical production and dispersal, while for others it means maintaining and developing tradition in the rural context of northwestern Ghana. Descending below the surface, we see complex mechanisms at work behind the performance practice of xylophone music, each with potential theoretical value to ethnomusicological discourse. My goal is to depict the stratification of musical meaning in Lobi xylophone music, while also representing the social stratification of Lobi musicians. At the core of my research are two remarkable blind musicians, who stand side by side with the best xylophonists, yet experience life in the northwest of Ghana from a unique and culturally revealing position. Upon my first meeting with Maal Yichiir and Maal Chile, blind brothers from the town of Bubalnyuro, I realized the potential to map an entirely unchartered territory; the dynamic aspects of the Lobi xylophone tradition as experienced from the cultural position of two virtuosic, inventive, and blind Lobi xylophonists.

The Scope of My Research on Lobi Music

My research, which began in 2002 and extends through 2010, has from the outset worked towards four clear research objectives. The first is to uncover histories of the West African hinterland region encoded in the musical practices of Lobi communities, increasing awareness of these histories while theorizing the apparatuses that transmit them.

The 14 key Kogyil (literally "Funeral Xylophone") of the Lobi Peoples.

The second is to document the musical practices of Lobi xylophonists, tracing the aesthetic aspects of their tradition, the organizational principles behind their musical compositions, and the sources of inspiration that propel musical invention and change. The third is to understand the cultural relationships that circulate within communities of Lobi xylophonists, rendered through the lives of six xylophonists (two of which are at the forefront of my research) whom I am connected to as a musician, researcher, and community activist. The fourth and final goal is to begin to explain what it is to be blind in the rural northwest of Ghana for two brothers, both of whom are extraordinary xylophonists. Intimately intertwined, each of these objectives draws larger disciplinary discourses together into a dynamic and multidimensional ethnomusicological study. This documentary film portrays the musical and cultural existence of specific Lobi musicians against current of contemporary Ghanaian society.