‘African music must be the tool for the continent’s redevelopment’

Grammy-nominated Ghanaian musician Rocky Dawuni believes African music should play an important role in rebuilding and transforming the continent socially, culturally, and economically.

Speaking during GhanaWeb’s weekly X Space on September 19, 2025, Rocky Dawuni described Africa as ‘the most blessed continent’ but lamented that it has spent too many years ‘in the wilderness.’

Ibrahim Mahama, Wode Maya, Rocky Dawuni, and others offered diplomatic passports

He argued that despite its wealth of talent and natural resources, Africa remains weighed down by a colonial mindset that affect its worldview.

According to him, this mindset has stripped Africans of the opportunity to embrace and celebrate their own culture authentically.

He explained that even African leadership fails to reflect the continent’s cultural identity, making it difficult for the rest of the world to give Africa the respect it deserves.

The international musician urged Africans not to imitate others but instead to value their culture and harness music as a tool for self-discovery, unity, and development.

How Wode Maya, Dentaa, Rocky Dawuni, and Ibrahim Mahama reacted to diplomatic passport honour

He mentioned that Africa must break free from colonial borders and divisions, unite as one people, and use its energy and natural wealth to create progress from within rather than allowing outsiders to exploit its resources.

“Africa has been the most blessed continent, but we have spent many times and many years in the wilderness. We are like the God’s children that were cast in different places. You know, some are in the diaspora. We live close to our brothers and sisters in neighbourhood, in other countries, but when we cross, we are like, oh, I’m going to Cote d’Ivoire, I need to learn French, because I speak English. We’re still shackled by the colonial mindset. And I think that that has also infiltrated into our own worldview, and has robbed us of the opportunity to do things that are authentically African, and things that really represent who we are as a people.

“Even when you look at most of our leadership, our leadership a lot of times has not even reflected what we culturally are. If we, as a people, don’t elevate our culture and uphold our culture as a cornerstone of our identity, then nobody will respect us as a people. We can’t become cheap copies of somebody else. So, we have to let the music now be a tool for our redevelopment, our finding ourselves, as knowing that Africa doesn’t need to be a bunch of countries competing against each other when they were all originally the same people,” he stated.

Rocky Dawuni added, “We have to throw away those shackles of colonial borders, and unify as a people, and utilise the youthful resources and manpower that God has given us in this time, and also the material resources that God has endowed us to develop our own people, and not subject it to the exploitation of others, whose ultimate aim is to keep us divided in subjugation, so that they come and exploit our God-given birthright.”

AK/EB