Cadbury’s recent TV ads have been among the most memorable, if frequently annoying, of recent memory: the gorilla drumming to Phil Collins, the incessant use of Queen to soundtrack racing trucks - though who could resist the kids’ eyebrow acrobatics to Freestyle’s Don’t Stop The Rock.
Now their advertising agency has gone one better and commissioned original music to highlight the firm’s use of Fairtrade cocoa beans. The ad, replete with smiling Ghanaians and dancing beans, is as twee as anything you might suffer in The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, though its funky soundtrack is a vast improvement on the trad background music you hear on the bland TV adaptations and worthy of more consideration.
Zingolo is a collaboration between Ghanaian rap star Tinny and UK uber-producer Paul Epworth. It is a fresh take on the nation’s very own hiplife, a fusion of hip hop beats and native high-life music, the bedrock of Ghana’s pop culture for generations. Watch the full promo here.
It is a fun, zingy number up there with plenty of other recent intercontinental fusions, not least that of London-based crew The Very Best, who feature a Malawian vocalist and last month distilled their euphoric sound on the album Warm Heart Of Africa. They follow in the wake of Portugal’s infectious Buraka Som Sistema, who combine Angolan kuduro and tight production to great effect.
So the tracik may have been devised to sell more sugary confectionary, but at least it makes a change from the blanket use of twiddly guitars and stuttering rhythms under the guise of Afrobeat. As South Africa’s Blk Jks and DJ Mujava show, the continent’s emerging musicians are moving way beyond those cliches. Now Fallon, Cadbury’s ad agency, has gone beyond the usual bounds of syndication to set up a record label for its client – A Glass And A Half Full Records. The chocolate manufacturers’ profits from iTunes sales go towards the charity CARE International, who work in villages throughout Ghana.
What’s not to like? Well, the chocolate may be fair trade, but there are no details on the single release. You could argue it is more important to nail commodities before we move on to intellectual property, but 50/50 share models have been around since at least Rough Trade’s early releases. And I should know, for I am benefiting from a similar deal on this very site.
