Doing Chumburung songs—a taxonomy of styles

The author explores the words and themes of different types of song sung by the Chumburung people of Ghana. She adopts Okpewho’s suggestion that songs are different by their context, form and themes (1992), but divides them into categories based solely on context. She details each type of song according to Chumburung labelling, and gives examples. Frequent reference is made to work by Nketia on Ashanti songs. Then a taxonomy is drawn to show the context, form and theme of all the types of song.