Veteran musician and filmmaker Panji Anoff has lamented on the neglect of traditional music education in Ghana’s basic schools, a gap he believes has robbed generations of their cultural grounding.
When the veteran musician and filmmaker speaks about Ghana’s music, he does so with the urgency of someone watching a priceless heritage slip away.
According to Panji, the decline began during Jerry John Rawlings’ administration, when compulsory music education was removed from the curriculum. “They said music education was a bourgeois pursuit,” he recounted.
“But if it’s based on our traditional music, it’s not bourgeois at all. It’s the best way to protect our culture, our history, and our traditions.”
Panji Anoff
Panji argued that music is not just an art form but a learning tool that sharpens critical thinking and creativity.
“When you learn how to play the piano, your mathematics improves,” he said. “Music teaches you how to learn and how to think.”
He proposed a bold but simple solution: integrate traditional musicians into the school system as community instructors.
“If you go to Nungua, there are traditional musicians who already teach during festivals like Homowo. Give them full-time employment to teach what they already know. They’re trained, not by the system, but by tradition.”
Panji Anoff
For Panji, the benefits go far beyond preserving songs. He sees music as a gateway to language, history, morality, and identity. “Our traditional songs contain our local languages, our fables, our heroes. Teaching them means teaching who we are,” he stressed.
He cautioned that failure to act would leave Ghana with nothing but “a secondhand Western system.” “If we create our own, we’ll be the owners,” he concluded. “We’ll be the best at it.”
Panji Anoff Reflects on Ghanaian Rhythm
Before Panji Anoff became known as a producer, activist, and creative icon, he was a curious six-year-old hiding behind musicians on a lawn in Accra, watching the magic of Ghanaian rhythm unfold.
Panji painted a vivid picture of his earliest musical awakening. “My mother was a teacher at the Goethe Institute,” he recalled.
“One day, the Wulomei group came to perform. I hid behind them and realized the singers were communicating directly with the drummers. The way the dancers moved, even how they shook their bodies, changed the rhythm.”
Panji Anoff
That experience taught him something that would shape his life: that music is communication, not performance.
“I always assumed movement followed drumming,” he said. “But in Ghanaian music, it’s simultaneous, they inspire each other.”
His second formative moment came at Accra’s old Apollo Theatre, where he watched Fela Kuti perform live in the early 1970s , escorted by his German grandmother, who had fallen in love with African rhythm.
“She thought Apollo was a grand European theatre,” Panji laughed. “She wore silk, sat on chewing gum, and was shocked to see it was an open-air venue!”
But the music , and Fela himself, left a permanent impression. “My grandmother loved classical composers like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky,” he explained.
“But when she heard Fela, she recognized the orchestration, the conversations between drums and horns. She said West African music was the most danceable music she’d ever heard.”
Panji Anoff
Panji also used the moment to reflect on Ghana’s past leaders, singling out General Acheampong as one of the country’s most visionary.
“He understood development like few others. He made Ghana self-sufficient in food and strengthened local banking. He deserves far more credit.”
Panji Anoff
From childhood memories of drummers and dancers to insights about leadership and culture, Panji’s reflections reveal a through-line in his philosophy; true progress comes from rhythm from connection, self-definition, and creative courage.
As he put it, “Every mistake in art is a new style. You just keep doing it, and you get better.” That, perhaps, is the rhythm of Panji Anoff’s life and the beat he hopes Ghana never loses.
