He was enrolled in the best first and second cycle schools in his community to build a solid foundation for his future career as a top-notch lawyer, but today he does not even have a “Mister” title to his name. He is simply called George Darko.
He fell in love with the guitar instead of law, and his masterstrokes have won him several local and international awards including the Entertainment Critics and Reviewers Association (ECRAG) honours in 1982 and ’84, UNESCO award in ’82, Black Caesar’s Creativity Award in ‘85 and the Ghana Music Awards (GMA) Fontomfrom Award in 2000. He has also been featured on a number of media programmes in Europe.
After about three decades of music composition, George Darko is still hot on the music scene with is current CD Odo Colour firmly on the local charts. During the 1990s he took a long break on the local scene because, according to him, he wanted to give the youth the chance to develop their hiplife music.
Once a royal always a royal. While in Germany, George Darko paid regular visits to his royal home from time to time and in 1990, the paramount chief of Akwapim, Nana Addo Dankwa invited George to Akropong to be enstooled as the Tufuhene (traditional defence minister) of the area.
He officially ascended the throne in September 1991. His stool name is Nana Yaw Ampem Darko. He said the battles that his forefathers fought to acquire land for the people is over but the fight against poverty and disease is still on, and that is what he was enstooled to lead.
He has raised funds to build a 20-seater water closet public place of convenience for the people, and helped to buy a generator for the Tetteh Quarshie Hospital. He has also initiated a number of projects in the area. His major preoccupation, he said, is to provide direction and hope for the youth.
There is a beautiful woman behind this successful musician, chief and ex-soldier. Her name is Nana Afia Adu Twumwaa from the Jantuah family of Ashanti. She is a successful businesswoman based in Germany. George has two sons but has lost his only daughter. The boys are Eric, 32, and Nana, 17. They are both students. The girl, Mary, would have been 28 years old if she were alive.
George does not keep pets because he said he has too many mouths to feed. He enjoys fufu and palm nut soup. His hobbies include playing football and reading materials related to jazz music. He is a full time musician and traditional ruler and has a knack for farming. Presently he is engaged in oil palm cultivation and hopes to settle down as a full time farmer later on in life.
As a royal from the palace of the paramount chief of the Akwapim Traditional Area, George had all the opportunity to grow up and make money by wearing a robe, a wig and “putting it to people” in court.
Interestingly, he did not even find love in the subjects that he needed to study in order to make it to the law school. He rather fell in love with biology, a science subject, as well as the teacher who taught the subject.
Make no mistake; George did not like biology because he wanted to become a medical doctor, but it was because the Canadian teacher who taught the subject was a good guitarist and George desperately wanted to learn to play the instrument. His love for music made him a rebel in the palace of his late father, Nana Kwame Fori II, the Paramount Chief of the Akwapim Traditional Area who wanted his son, George Yaw Darko, to become a legal brain and not a guitar finger.
Presently, Ghana has about three popular types of dance music forms, namely Traditional highlife which is credited to Daniel Amponsah alias Agya Koo Nimo, Hiplife which is the brainchild of Reginald Osei, also known as Reggie Rockstone and “Burgher” or contemporary highlife, which is George Darko’s baby.
In an exclusive interview with The Mirror at his West Legon residence in Accra the Burgher highlife man with his guitar firmly strapped to his body, led the paper through the corridors of his life.
He was born on April 5, 1951 at Akropong Akwapim to Mr Kwame Awere, a land surveyor who was also the Paramount Chief of the Akwapim Traditional Area under the stool name, Nana Kwame Fori II. He was the immediate predecessor to the current Paramount Chief of Akwapim, Oseadeeyo Nana Addo Dankwa.
George’s mother was the late Abena Opare, a seamstress and the 10th wife of Nana Fori II. She later divorced his father and married a rich Nigerian, Alhaji Jimmah Balogun. According to George, his millionaire stepfather’s name was first on the list of foreigners who were affected by the Aliens Compliance Order issued by the government of the late Prime Minister, Kofi Abrefa Busia. As a result, his mother had to leave the country with his rich sweetheart, for Nigeria.
George said the lukewarm relationship between her parents did not in any way affect his education. What really cut short his education after his General Certificate of Examination (GCE) Ordinary Level was his love for the guitar. He started school at the Akropong Presbyterian Demonstration School, popularly known as Practice School, in 1957. About a couple of years later his mother moved to Boadua near Akwatia in the Eastern Region so he had to change schools.
Just when he was about to move to class five at Boadua, George was brought back to Akropong where he went back to his former school, Practice School, to complete his primary education.
From the primary school George was admitted to the Akropong Presbyterian Boys Boarding School, popularly known as Salem. After two years of middle school education at Salem he was enrolled in the Okupeman Secondary School to begin his journey to the law school. Some of his school mates at Okuapeman were Mr Kwamena Ahwoi and Dr Farouk Braimah, both former Ministers of State.
His father was anxiously looking forward to seeing his son become a successful lawyer like George’s uncle, the late Kofi Awere Darko who was one time the Paramount Chief of Akwapim under the stool name Nana Kwadede. However, George spent more time in school, carrying the books and guitar of his biology teacher, a Canadian peace Corp volunteer, Mr Dobson.
According to George, the way Mr Dobson played the guitar was very captivating and he was interested in learning how to play the instrument. “Luckily for me Mr Dobson decided to teach me how to play his guitar which he had made with a calabash”.
His love for the guitar grew so strong that his books began to suffer. He played in the school band called “Agent Fire”. After Form Five the Akwapim royal said a big “good bye” to formal education and decided to concentrate on his strings. This created a crack in the cordial relation that existed between him and his father.
When he decided not to continue with his education, George also refused to get involved in cultural activities and chores in his father’s palace. His father wanted to straighten his ways but he did not want any of that so George left the palace and lived with his uncle, Nana Boafo Ansah, then the Krontihene of Akwapim.
George said his uncle, Nana Boafo was a bit more liberal and encouraged him to do what his heart desired. He said his mentor, Mr Dobson later presented the calabash guitar to him as a gift. “While living in my uncle’s house, I played the guitar 24 hours a day”.
At 18, George said he was playing fantastic guitar. He said one Mr Gabby Nick Valdo of GANIVA Battery Centre had just returned from England to form a band called the “Avengers” around the time that his playing skills were fast improving.
Mr Valdo employed George as his guitarist and the Avengers band became his first professional band. His performance on the guitar soon became the talk of the town. He said during his stint with the Avengers band, the Ashanti Region organised a dance band competition involving all bands in the area.
He said the Soul Believers band at Ashanti Mampong badly needed a top guitarist so they approached him for his services and he obliged and joined the group. Around the same time, the Blue Monks band also poached Kiki Djan of Osibisa fame who was then a young skilful keyboardist.
He recalled that many bands including, the Akwaboa Guitar Band, K. Gyasi, Midnight Movers, Noble Kings and J. C. Akosa’s Soul Believers took part in the competition, which the latter won easily because of the unique way he played the guitar, among other things. “That night at the City Hotel, I put the guitar behind my neck and played it; I played it with my teeth and did all kinds of gimmicks with the instrument”, he said.
While he was making a name for himself in the Soul Believers Band, the Fourth Battalion of Infantry of the Ghana Army formed a band under the direction of one Colonel Sam. The Colonel later invited four band boys from Soul Believers, including George Darko, to form the core of the band, which was known as the Fourth Dimension Band.\ George and his other mates were therefore enlisted into the Ghana Army as military bandsmen. The Fourth Dimension Band composed popular songs such as Yedi Nam Pa Aba.
George describes Koo Nimo as one of his mentors. George played in the Fourth Dimension band for six years during which he and his group entertained soldiers in the Middle East. When he returned to Ghana he left the army with the rank of Lance Corporal.
He later formed a band called the Golden Stool Band and left for Germany with the group to seek greener pastures. He played with musicians such as Yaw Boakye, Fouad Jagger and Kwame Sometimer. That was around the 1970s. He said during the early days of the Golden Stool band, the group was doing a lot of copyright works so he decided to compose some highlife songs and that caused the break up of the Golden Stool Band. In 1981 he quit the band and went solo.
“Around the same time a Fanti friend of mine had a book titled Akoo Te Brofo which was a present from his grandfather. I liked the title of the book so much that I decided to compose a song and give it that title”, he recalled. And indeed, it was that composition in 1982 that catapulted him to stardom.
“George, why were your works described as Burgher Highlife?” “Well, the word “burgher” in German means citizen and at the time that I released Akoo Te Brofo, Ghanaians called other Ghanaians living in Europe, burghers, so I think that was why people describe my songs as “burgher highlife”. “My burgher highlife style introduced some more fire into the traditional highlife rhythms to make them more danceable and attractive to the Europeans”
He said his decision to make highlife more danceable stemmed from the fact that any time he visited a club in Germany and songs from East Africa were played people jumped onto the floor but sat down immediately Ghanaian rhythms filled the air. Though, he is not a natural singer, George was literally forced to learn to sing when his lead vocalist, Lee Duodu parted company with him after the release of Akoo Te Brofo in the early 80s.
“So, George how were you able to discover your singing voice?” “I did that through determination and when I found my voice I was advised to take a lot of palm nut soup to improve my voice, believe it or not!”
Some of his other hit compositions include Adikanfo, the Children’s Song and the current album, Odo Colour, which is being produced and distributed by Agiecoat Records headed by Producer of the Year, Nana Kwasi Asa.
George believes that his natural love for music is linked to one of his uncles Kwabena Owusu who was also very fantastic on the guitar. He said one man to whom he owes tonnes of gratitude is Franz Josef, who encouraged him to learn to sing in order to make him a complete musician.