Album Notes

Yacub Addy is senior among the famous members of the Addy family of drummers, singers and dancers from Accra, Ghana. Here is a hip African elder, a true pioneer who bucked the status quo to play and live his rich traditional culture. His is more than music - it's the power of ancient rhythm breathing new life into the 21st century.

"My generation in Africa," says Yacub, "those of us remaining ... we are the children of the ancients. We are the link to the time when our fathers and mothers were one with the rhythms of life. If you want the original - it lives in us."

Addy's music took him from Ghana to Europe and America, where he created Odadaa!, made up of great performers of his own Ga ethnic group. Combining lush rhythms, rich vocals, and a wonderfully casual virtuosity, Odadaa!'s music is hard to resist.

"Children of the Ancients" testifies. A wrought iron bell gives the driving beat and an array of melodic drums, calabash shakers, additional bells, bamboo flutes and voices elaborate, communicating in a constantly responsive dialogue with one another, creating a deep soundscape full of life and spirit. Recorded in live ensemble style to keep it real, it includes three traditional Ga pieces and four traditionally-grounded compositions, a form Addy calls tsimo ("chee-mo"), from a Ga word meaning powerful or heavy. And it is heavy!

Addy starts us off with Ta Ta Tei, a composition inspired by a Ga lullaby, and takes us through the infectious traditional processional Kolomashi, the plaintive composition Fire, the intense traditional spiritual rhythm Tigari, describes the beauty of a woman named Kale in his tight piece of the same name, then heats us up with the cooking composition Super, and takes it home with classic hot Ga traditional music - Oge.

- Amina Addy

Odadaa is a treasure house of Ghanaian culture that not only performs traditional music and dance, but continually invents new forms rooted in tradition."

- Robert Browning, World Music Institute, NYC