Ghanaian Radio

This weekend I spent some time listening to Ghanaian radio. A lot of stations of course play high life music. Others play hip life which is a fusion of hip hop and high life. Still others play straight up hip hop. Then there is jazz, rhythm and blues, and other genres. But, the most interesting station I found and it only lasted a couple of hours before I lost it was a country western station and not just any country western station. But, a country western station that played a lot of clearly narrated and very depressing old school type country western songs about divorce, alcoholism, and other typically depressing tropes of country western music. None of the songs were ones that I had ever heard before, but I am pretty sure that they were American and not Ghanaian. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours it seemed to disappear to be replaced with a station playing upbeat, but rather mundane African-American popular music from the late 1970s and early 1980s that I have heard over and over again since the songs first came out. That is okay as back ground music, but the country station made me really pay attention to the lyrics and the stories they were telling.