Ghana Life: Koo Nimo Master Musician
Since its founding in January 1972, the Technology Consulting Center (TCC) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, has organized events open to the public. Some of these functions accompanied the opening of a new project or training program and some marked an important anniversary, such as the university’s Silver Jubilee or a national celebration. All these events required music, and from the beginning it was decided that this should be live and reflect the local culture; thus, the TCC was privileged to come into regular contact with Koo Nimo and his Ashanti palm wine ensemble some years before he became a national icon and two decades before his fame spread internationally.
In the 1970s, Koo Nimo was employed as a technician in the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science, KNUST, where he was known as Kwabena Amponsah. He was a man of many names and delighted in giving a full explanation to anyone who asked. At birth in October 1934, he was named Kwabena Boa-Amponsem but was baptized Daniel Amponsah. He took the name Koo Nimo after his professional music career, but one of the most memorable songs from those early days was Kwabena Buo, which he said was his name when he was a child. Kwabena means born on Tuesday, and Buo may derive from Boa in his birth name, as Twi spellings of words and names are far from standardized.
Koo Nimo always sang in his mother tongue, Twi, and in the soft, melodious tones that have now become internationally admired. He accompanied himself on an acoustic guitar, but most of his band played indigenous instruments in the palm wine (nsafufuo) or highlife tradition. Many of his most famous numbers were in the highlife rhythm and all his teammates joined the signing. Koo Nimo never stopped asking what numbers he should perform on each occasion. There were two songs that were always requested at TCC sponsored events. The first was the aforementioned childhood memory of him, Kwabena Buo, and the second had the Twi title ‘wo ma me den?’ more or less, ‘what are you doing to me?’
Koo Nimo is remembered as a modest, soft-spoken man who always expressed his delight at being invited to perform at a special performance. It is possible that his fame came to him much later than is usual for popular musicians in the West. In 1979, at the age of 44, he gained national recognition when he was elected president of MUSIGA (the Ghana Musicians Union) and in 1985 Koo Nimo was appointed acting president of COSGA, the Ghana Copyright Society. By the time TCC’s work was recorded on video film, The Secret of Wealth, in 1987, and Koo Nimo provided the background music, he was already on his way to international recognition.
In 1990, eight of Koo Nimo’s songs were released on a compact disc titled Osabarima (One Man’s Dance), the first work by a Ghanaian artist to be recorded on CD. Thereafter, he was showered with honors in Ghana and the United States and he served as a professor of ethnomusicology at two American universities. Now semi-retired he has returned to his native Kumasi where we first heard him sing forty years ago. The beautiful tones of Kwabena Buo will caress our ears forever.
