![\"Senafone](\"http:\/\/www.palmwinemusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Senafone_FAO_1506-A.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\nSenafone, setup by Accra business man Samir Eid, quickly established as a very successful label for modern, hip highlife music in the mid 1950s. With the C.F.A.O. (Companie Francaise de l’Afrique Occidentale) as a distributor, the music of Spike Anyankor’s \u201cRhythm Aces\u201d, King Bruce’s \u201cBlack Beats\u201d, the \u201cStar Rockets\u201d (a.k.a. Tempos No. 2) and the \u201cDelta Dandies\u201d spread all over West Africa.<\/p>\n
Scorpion Mensah, also called \u201cNew Mr Guiter\u201d was a star guitarist of the 1950s. He had played with Tempo’s No 2 Band and left with vocalist Bing Quartey to play with the \u201cShanbros Dance Band\u201d. The “Afro Cubanos” were an outfit that also included former companions of E.T. Mensah: After drummer Guy Warren, saxophonist Joe Kelly, bass player “Serious” Amarfio and guitarist “Baby” Nelson had left the original \u201cTempos Band\u201d in the early 1950s, they formed a group called “Jam session” and soon after the “Afro Cubanos”.<\/p>\n
The song featured in this post captures a recurrent theme not only in West African music (from Kakaiku\u2019s \u201cPeople will talk of you\u201d to Geraldo Pino\u2019s \u201cLet them talk\u201d) but generally in western youth cultures: the individual versus the society. The advice to not consider the morals and conventions of the society and to \u201cdo whatever you think is right\u201d is a resolute contra-distinction to traditional lifestyles which makes this song a definite modern as well as urban statement.<\/p>\n