Obo Addy (January 15, 1936 – September 13, 2012) was a

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...

ian

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western bands that play rock, pop, jazz, or R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeeping and embellishing the musical timbre. The drummer' ...

and

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

who was one of the first native African

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who w ...

s to bring the fusion of traditional

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

and

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US * Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describ ...

known as ''

worldbeat Worldbeat is a music genre that blends pop music or rock music with world music or traditional music. Worldbeat is similar to other cross-pollination labels of contemporary and roots genres, and which suggest a rhythmic, harmonic or textural c ...

'' to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

and then to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in the late 1970s. He taught music at

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocate ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...

Biography

Addy was born into the Ga ethnic group in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. He was one of the 55 children of Jacob Kpani Addy, a ''wonche'' or

medicine man A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and cerem ...

who integrated

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed ...

ic music into healing and other

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

s. Obo Addy's earliest musical influence was the traditional music of the Ga people, but he was also influenced as an adolescent by

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Funk ...

from Europe and the United States, and performed in local bands that played Westernized music and the dance music of Ghana known as

highlife Highlife is a music genre that started in present-day Ghana in the 19th century, during its history as a colony of the British Empire and through its trade routes in coastal areas. It describes multiple local fusions of African metre and wester ...

. The

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary class ...

commissioned a string quartet from Addy for their 1992 album '' Pieces of Africa''. Addy was employed by the Arts Council of Ghana in 1969, and played his native Ga traditional music in the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972 ...

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. He moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, and began touring in Europe. In 1978, he moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

in the United States, where he taught at Lewis & Clark College. He also led weekly drumming workshops at Portland's Lincoln High School. In 1986, he founded the Homowo African Arts and Cultures organization, a non-profit which sponsors the annual Homowo Festival of African Arts in Oregon. The organization was later renamed as the Obo Addy Legacy Project. After a long battle with liver cancer, Addy died on September 13, 2012.

Awards and honors

He was awarded a Master's Fellowship from the

Oregon Arts Commission The Oregon Arts Commission is a governor-appointed body of nine commissioners who allocate grants for artists based in the U.S. state of Oregon. It receives the bulk of its funding through the National Endowment for the Arts, the state, and the Ore ...

and Regional Arts & Culture Council, and the Oregon Governors Award for the Arts. In 1996, he became the first native African to win a

National Heritage Fellowship The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States government's ...

from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States.

Recent albums

* ''AfieyeOkropong'' (

Alula Records The alula , or bastard wing, (plural ''alulae'') is a small projection on the anterior edge of the wing of modern birds and a few non-avian dinosaurs. The word is Latin and means "winglet"; it is the diminutive of ''ala'', meaning "wing". The al ...

) * ''Wonche Bi'' (Alula Records) * ''Let Me Play My Drums'' ( Burnside Records) * ''The Rhythm Of Which A Chief Walks Gracefully'' (

Earthbeat Records Earthbeat may refer to: * ''Earthbeat'' (The Future Sound of London album), 1992 * ''Earthbeat'' (Paul Winter album), 1987 {{disambiguation ...

) * ''Okropong'' ( Santrofi Records)

References

External links

* *
Obo Addy: Master Drummer home page
*
Addy vs. Addy
. Zach Dundas. ''Willamette Week Online''. February 26, 2003.

from Lewis & Clark College site
Obo Addy pageArticle about Addy familyOregon Art Beat: Drummer Obo Addy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Addy, Obo 1936 births 2012 deaths Ghanaian drummers Ghanaian dancers National Heritage Fellowship winners Lewis & Clark College faculty Musicians from Portland, Oregon Musicians from Accra Ga-Adangbe people