Togo

Togo is known for agbadja-rooted popular song, a strong funk and soul tradition from 1970s Lomé, and gweta, the dance-pop format Toofan carried across francophone Africa. Bella Bellow is the country's most revered singer, and Akofa Akoussah's sole 1976 album is among the most collected West African records of its decade. Contemporary artists such as Santrinos Raphaël and Nana Benz du Togo now reach audiences well beyond the country.

Bella Bellow was the Togolese singer widely regarded as the country's greatest, known as la blueswoman d'Afrique for the depth she brought to songs in Ewé and French. She performed at the 1969 Pan-African cultural festival in Algiers alongside Miriam Makeba and Manu Dibango, which made her a continental figure. She died in a car accident near Lomé in 1973 at the age of twenty-eight, leaving a small catalogue that has been reissued and covered ever since.

Gweta is a Togolese dance and the pop format built around it, which spread from Lomé's street scene across francophone Africa and into the diaspora in the 2010s. The duo Toofan made the best known record named for it, though the dance itself has a shared history in the city rather than a single inventor. The format pairs a chanted hook with a named step and travels on video before it reaches radio.

Musicians including Roger Damawuzan and Itadi K. Bonney recorded hard, horn-driven funk and soul in Lomé in the 1970s and early 1980s, but the records had almost no international distribution at the time. Reissue labels such as Hot Casa and Mr Bongo later tracked them down, and the small original pressings now change hands for large sums. Damawuzan, compared to James Brown for the scream on Wait for Me, has since recorded new albums in his seventies.

French is the official language and appears throughout the catalogue, but most of Togo's best-known recordings are sung in local languages. Ewé is the most common, used by Bella Bellow, King Mensah, Afia Mala and much of the contemporary scene, with Mina also widespread along the coast. Rappers and pop artists frequently move between French, Ewé, Mina and English inside a single track.