A celebrated musician from Africa is spending this week in southeast Iowa, offering residents of Oskaloosa a series of concerts and workshops featuring music and dance from his native Ghana. Okaidja Afroso is a singer, guitarist, percussionist and dancer who’s traveling with several other performers from Ghana.
During Monday night’s show, Afroso held up the three-foot-tall drum he plays. “This is carved from a solid piece of log. They chip, chip, chip, chip and hollow out the inside,” Afroso says. “The pegs around this are from tree branches. We usually put antelope, deer skin or cow skin on these drums to make the sounds they make.”
The performers are playing music most Iowans have never heard before, including a style known as jaku mumor, which means “ancestral spirit.”
“In Ghana, we have lots of different types of music and bands, due to the fact that we have a lot of different ethnic groups,” Afroso says, “so depending on where you go, you hear traditional drumming that are different and the drums are also different.” This visit is sponsored by Arts Midwest as Afroso and his band offer workshops to schools in Oskaloosa, as well as to various community groups.
Oskaloosa is the current Iowa host for the Arts Midwest “World Fest,” which connects international music groups with rural communities through weeklong visits. Free concerts and presentations are planned tonight at 6 at Smokey Row Coffee in Oskaloosa, Wednesday afternoon at the Oskaloosa Public Library, and Friday morning at George Daily Auditorium, where a ticketed concert is also scheduled for Saturday night.