The year 2022 has been filled with accomplishments for Ghanaian band, Santrofi – racking up
accolades, getting rave concert reviews and earning performance deals.
The ‘Alewa’ singers have completed their Europe tour and are back home. A spin-off tour of their debut studio album ‘Alewa’, the Band performed at over 50 locations across the UK, Spain, Canada, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and more locations which were all well-received.
In one of the epic concerts, “Down the Rabbit Hole” in the Netherlands, Santrofi shared the stage with top-ranking musicians such as Erykah Badu, one of the world’s most gifted rhythms and blues singers from the United States.
Available videos on Facebook and YouTube show that the band connected well with the audience, encouraging singing and dancing. At most of the venues, members of the audience were seen leaving their seats to walk down to the front row to take photos of the band without any objection from security.
The tour which began in May and culminated in September 2022 was made possible by Outhere Records – a highly-acclaimed German record company and Eiden Music Agency – which is well known for touring bands from Brazil, Africa, the UK and around the world.
So far, Santrofi’s fire-cracking, excellent and thrilling performances in concerts have attracted Africans in the diaspora and Europeans of all races who are increasingly becoming captivated by highlife music.
The eight-piece high-energy band is fronted by vocalist, bassist and founding leader Emmanuel Ofori and backed by a seven-piece band consisting of Robert Koomson (a.k.a Nsoroma) – lead vocals, talking drum, guitar; Bernard Gyamfi on trombone and shekere; Norbert Wonkyi on trumpet, flugelhorn and bell; Prince Larbi on drums and vocals; Emmanuel Boakye Agyeman on keyboards and vocals; and Emmanuel Blankson on percussion.
Indeed, Ghana’s contemporary and biggest highlife band Santrofi is on a mission to resuscitate the highlife genre on the international landscape.
The band performs music with roots in vintage Ghanaian highlife music. Their influences include 1970s dance-guitar highlife and highlife funk as well as polyrhythmic beats and tunes from Afrobeat.
Apart from several nominations received at the Songlines Music Awards in UK, 3 Music Awards in Ghana, and Ghana Music Awards UK, Santrofi’s debut album reached No. 1 on World Music Charts Europe (WMCE) in 2021, and it was also adjudged by France-based major music digital distributor, Pan African Music (PAM) as one of the biggest albums in 2020.
Overwhelmed by the outcome of the “Santrofi Album Tour 2022”, they wrote on Facebook “We are super thankful to the almighty for a successful Alewa album/deep into highlife tour 2022.
Multiple cities, world-renowned festivals, good vibes, you name it. Thank you for the love you have shown us Bloggers, families, friends and fans. Expect nothing but the best from us in [the] near future”
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Source: Emmanuel Jewel Peprah Mensah
