Kwaa Mensah

Ghanaian Fanti musician. His uncle was the original "Sam" or Kwame Asare the first Highlife guitarist in Ghana. Sam taught Kwaa the guitar, and during the '30s Kwaa played in a Cape Coast Adaha band. In the '40s Kwaa joined up with a Konkoma group a and finally, in 1950, Kwaa formed his own guitar band and in 1952 cut his first single for H.M.V.. In 1955 Kwaa followed E.K. Nyame's example and added comic opera to his band's repertoire, with Kwaa playing the lady impersonator. He called his group The Fanti Trio, and it was so popular with the less-Westernized and more rural fans that by the early'60s he hadreleased two hundred records.