John Collins, PhD '94

In 1952 John Collins, Ph.D. ’94, began a love affair that has yet to end. It was the year his parents moved the family from their native England to Ghana so his father, a philosophy professor, could help establish the University of Ghana at Legon. Although Collins returned to England with his mother soon after, his brief exposure to the African country was enough to leave a profound impression on him, marked by a passion for African music.

Composing his life’s score

Back in England, Collins thought he would pursue a degree in medicine; however, his youthful exuberance drove him to something less “practical.” He decided to return to Ghana to attend the University of Ghana at Legon; however, not as a student in his father’s philosophy department. Rather, he majored in both sociology and archaeology, a “crash course in sociology and history of Ghana and Africa.” Collins’ return to Ghana rekindled and intensified the passion for African music ignited on his first trip. While at the university, his involvement in music intensified, and he immersed himself in the campus music scene.

After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in 1972, Collins formed Bokoor Band, a “highlife” guitar band which creates music that is “polyrhythmic, danceable, and well ventilated with rhythmic space,” and opened Bokoor Recording Studio. He also began combining his love of African music with his adoration for writing by composing various pieces.

To date, Collins has written nearly 100 publications relating to African music, including eight books. His most recent book, which was 20 years in the making, African Musical Symbolism in Contemporary Perspective: Roots Rhythms and Relativity, was published in 2004. Collins has given lectures and workshops around the world on African music and has also given radio and TV broadcasts, including the five-part BBC radio series entitled, “In the African Groove.”

His expertise in African music led to an invitation from UB in 1988 to be a guest lecturer about the relationship between African American and African popular performance. Based on his credentials, Collins qualified for a special Ph.D. program in UB’s American Studies department, which he completed, earning his advanced degree in ethnomusicology.

When looking back on his UB days, Collins fondly recalls his Ph.D. advisor, Charles Keil. “He was the perfect advisor,” Collins says. “He put me in touch with several local musicians and was very interested in a book that I was then beginning to put together on African Rhythmic philosophy. I can never thank him enough for the help and assistance he gave me.”

Collins returned to Ghana, and although it’s been a little over a decade since he was in Buffalo, he makes use of his UB experience daily as head of the University of Ghana Music Department. His duties include managing the department in addition to teaching nearly 1,200 students. He says his UB experience “gave me the qualification I needed to teach at the University of Ghana music department.”

West African music: A passion

Being a guitarist, a harmonica player and a percussionist has enabled Collins to play with dozens of bands in Ghana and Nigeria over the years. Today he performs with Local Dimension, the University of Ghana student and staff group, which toured throughout Europe and released a CD, as well as his own band. Collins claims that playing music is his most rewarding and favorite pursuit. Since opening Bokoor Studio more than 20 years ago, Collins has recorded more than 300 local bands, released 10 records and over 60 commercial cassettes, and created background music for three films.

Collins maintains that his most important contribution to the Ghanaian community is “documenting the biographies and tracing the history of Ghanaian popular music, particularly highlife music,” and he has the accolades to prove it. In 1991 he was given a Certificate of Honour by the National Commission on Culture for providing and documenting information on Ghanaian brass bands, and in 1998 was given the Ghana National ACRAG Arts Award for 30 years of pioneering research into highlife music. He is also an honorary life member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music.

A man of many merits

Music is not the only way Collins has contributed to Ghanaian society. Dramatically, on two separate occasions he was called on to help deliver babies under emergency conditions (drawing on hospital delivery experiences from his days in medical school), he played a role in banning the beating of left-handed children by teachers in Ghana’s Volta region, taught chemistry for six years in Ghanaian secondary schools, and was a founding member of the Musicians Union of Ghana.

On a broader scale, Collins has been a consultant for a World Bank project since 2002, in which he assists the music industries of Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zimbabwe and South Africa by providing loans and financial aid to help advance and fulfill the African music industry’s commercial growth potential. Recently, he was co-organizer for the month-long festivities of February’s African American Heritage Month that included guest lectures, musical performances and films.

Collins’ life in Ghana began as a student who fell in love with West African music, and along the way he fell in love with the country and its community, while founding his own family along the way.

Written by Sarah Heiermann, BA '05
July 2005 

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