Mfantsipim students start gospel music movement
Noise of Joy formed in July 1970, blending popular music styles with Christian messages.
Contemporary gospel music began in Ghana in the early 1970s, with Mfantsipim School students forming groups like Noise of Joy. Guitarist Emmanuel Lartey formed Noise of Joy in July 1970 with fellow students and girls from Wesley Girls’ High School. A visit by Youth For Christ’s Teen Team in September 1970 affirmed the students' musical direction.
School tutors and staff encouraged the students to perform, embracing the new sound as Methodism was born in song. On January 15, 1972, Noise of Joy merged with the Evangels to form Joyful Way Singers, combining guitar music with piano styles. Professor Joe-Nat Clegg-Lamptey described this fusion as ‘like dynamite!’
Joyful Way toured nationally in 1972 and appeared on GBC radio, later launching the Explosion of Joy concert on Boxing Day 1974. This concert, which still draws about 4,000 patrons annually, may be Africa’s longest-running contemporary gospel concert. Joyful Way inspired later groups like Calvary Road Singers, founded around December 1976.
Why it mattersYoung Ghanaians in the 1970s, particularly students at Mfantsipim School, developed and popularized a new style of contemporary gospel music.