Atopani

When I was with my father as a young boy, he was very strict. He was more like an Englishman, with a suit and tie every day. He died when I was ten. He did not want me to play the drum. He wanted me to become a doctor and my brother to be an engineer. My brother is an engineer. But I am a drummer, because my uncle said, "Your father is saying something that is not you. You are not going to be a doctor. I know you are going to be the master drummer of this village. The next one. So you have to work hard at it. Your daddy said what he had to say, but now he's gone and you have the time now to play." That was when I returned to Ghana from Nigeria. I was eleven. I went to Denu, where our traditional drumming goes on. That is also where we have our god's drum. It's called atopani, and it is not played every day. Maybe once or twice a year. I had to follow my uncle wherever he went because he was a master drummer. I played drums for special occasions, for births, marriages, and deaths.

Kofi Ayivor