Solomon Amarki "Sol" Amarfio (22 September 1938 – 13 December 2022) was a

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

ian drummer and songwriter. He was the drummer of

Osibisa Osibisa is a Ghanaian-Caribbean Afro rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London-based Caribbean musicians. Osibisa was the most successful and longest lived of the African-heritage bands in ...

and also wrote songs for the band. With the band he scored a worldwide hit with ''The Coffee Song'' (1976), ''Sunshine Day'' (1976) and ''Pata Pata'' (1980).

Biography

Amaerfio was born on 22 September 1938 in Asere in

Accra Accra (; or ''Gaga''; ; Ewe: Gɛ; ) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , had a population of ...

. He started drumming at the age of 14, which he learned himself. and received as a teenager the nickname "The Rhythm Man". After playing in several bands in Ghana, in around 1960 he moved to London, where he played with other Ghanaian artists, including the brothers

Teddy Osei Francis Osei (17 December 1935 – 14 January 2025), known as Teddy Osei, was a Ghanaian musician who was a saxophone player, drummer and vocalist, and best known as the leader of the Afro-pop band Osibisa, founded in 1969. Born in Kumasi, Osei ...

(

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

) and Mac Tontoh (

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

). Together with other African and Caribbean musicians, he founded the group

in 1969. They played a mixture of Western and African music. Amarfio wrote several of the band's songs and they scored several hits, including in the Netherlands (

Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 () is a weekly music chart compiled by ''Stichting Nederlandse Top 40''. It started as a radio program titled "Veronica Top 40", on the offshore radio, offshore station Radio Veronica in 1965. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" ...

) and the United Kingdom. Amarfio left the group in the early 1990s and moved back later to Accra where he was considered a musical hero. On 22 September 2018, several musicians performed at a concert specially organized to celebrate the his 80th birthday. Amarfio died on 13 December 2022, at the age of 84.

References

Ghanaian drummers Ghanaian songwriters 1938 births 2022 deaths Musicians from Accra Place of death missing {{Songwriter-stub