How A Few Seconds of Sound Became Decades of Memory | The Closing Argument

How did a few seconds of sound become decades of memory?

That was the question. This is the answer.

In eleven episodes, I sat across producers, artists, marketers, regulators, and consumers  each one holding a different piece of the same puzzle. Episode 11 is where I put it together.

And here is what I found that none of them said out loud.

Ghana doesn't use music in advertising; music is the foundation, not a layer. And it has been that way long before radio, television, or TikTok existed. 

This was Season 1. It is just the beginning.

MAD Conversations

Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana’s commercial creativity — documented.

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Chapters

0:00 The Question That Started It All 
 2:02 Sound as Authority
 4:22 Somatic Engineering & Cultural Identity 
 7:10 Craft, Sacrifice, and Loss 
 9:18 The Invisible Artist 
 11:05 The need for originality 
 12:44 Does It Actually Land? 
 15:38 The Numbers That Proved the Thesis 
 19:21 AI and the Future of Sound 
 20:48 The Real Answer 
 26:05 What This Season Was Actually About 
 27:31 The Industry Goes Undocumented No More

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:39

You know what's crazy about that song? I don't I don't drink beer. You recognize that song, don't you? I I don't drink beer and I've never had to order a club beer or any beer of that matter at a bar or anywhere. But the moment the first few notes hit, everybody get on down, something happens to me. My my body sort of knows what that is before my mind even catches up. And I know I'm not the only one. Several episodes ago, before we began the season, um, I sat in front of this camera, spoke to you, and amidst all the conversation, I asked you one question, which is how did a few seconds of sound become deeds of dead? And I promised you in the same breath that over the course of the season, uh we would find that answer together. I said we would talk to the producers who crafted the sound, the uh marketers who bet on the music, the artists who lent their voices, the regulators who drew the lines, and the consumers, you and I, who never forgot the songs for whatever reason. We did all of that. Every single one of them sat in a seat across me and gave me a piece of their contribution. And now, having sat across all of them, I can tell you on authority that the answer we set out to find is way bigger than I expected when I started. So let me take you through what I found. The first person I spoke to was Dr. Eric Fiyak Beji, who is a musicologist. And I went to him because I needed to understand something fundamental, which is why does sound uh carry so much weight in Ghana and not just in advertising per se, but in life. And what he told me set the tone for the entire season for me. He said that before radio, before television, before any of the media that we know now, there was the town crier. And the town crier didn't just announce things, he governed. When the song sounded, you stopped, you didn't have any choice per se. If the chief had a message, if the community had a directive, uh, if someone had something to sell, it came through that sound. Not through a poster, not through a letter, but through sound.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

The town crier represented uh present-day radio and television. If the community needs some information, it is the town crier is the source.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

He showed me how drums in our culture don't just make rhythm, they speak a literal speech. Uh there is something called speech mode, uh, where proverbs and messages are played on a drum. And if you are from a community, you would understand every word. But if you're not, you just hear sound, a very nice one. And that hit me for a reason because it means that even in Ghana, sound was never entertainment first, right? Sound was authority, sound was how you organized a community, and that tradition, that instinct to stop and listen when you hear something purposeful or when you hear a purposeful sound, that's still in us. It didn't go away because we got TVs and radios and smartphones. The sound found new containers and jingles. Jingles are one of those containers. Now, knowing that the tradition exists is one thing, but who actually builds the bridge between that tradition and the art you hear on radio? That's what Carnell came to show us on the show in the second episode. Carnell started out wanting to be a music producer, actually. He walked from Roman Ridge all the way to La Pony every night for six months. No money for transport, just to learn how to use Footy Loop Studio. Uh, his first day in a real studio, they asked him to edit a radio jingle. And he tried to edit it like a song because that was how he was, he had started his um his learning. Three minutes long, his boss said, nah, tighten this thing. And that's when he actually realized that this is a completely different craft. Editing a song and editing a jingle, they're completely different. But the thing Carnell said that I haven't been able to shake off, or and I have referenced all through um the other episodes, and honestly, that might be one of the most important ideas of this entire season, uh, is something called somatic engineering. He said when you hear a song and your body moves to it, whether in a club or at a wedding or on a trot, you are not just hearing it, right? You are encoding it's you are you are encoding it into your nervous system. Your body's absorbing the brand, the song. And that's why dance music works for art generally in Ghana. It's not just catchy, right? Uh, it gets into your muscles, into your movement, and into your identity.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Printed into your nervous system in ways you are not even paying attention. So when they say they want dance, uh they want the uh TikTok dance challenges, maybe they don't even know what I'm talking about, but that's literally what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

And then he said something else. He said, the sound that works in Ghana has to find common ground. The market woman has to hear herself in it, the Trotro mate has to hear himself in it. The man in the business suits also has to hear himself in it. And if you made music that only the person who commissioned it likes or understands it or can relate to it, then you failed. The ad will die on the ground. Simplicity, cultural identity, those are the things that make it work. A sound that a child can sing back to you, that's what made it stick. Then I sat with Uncle Freddie Ma. And that conversation, I don't think I was ready for it. Uncle Freddie produced some of the most iconic commercial sounds in this country, cargo gin beaters. Think about it. Dozens, 400 plus, as he told me on the show. Um, he had never attended any music school. He never attended any sound engineering school. He taught himself um sound production or music production. He bought the books, he figured it out himself. And when he got to the peak of it all, a flat took everything away. His studio, his instruments, his archives. Decades of work gone. There were jingles we will never hear again because they they existed in one man's studio and nowhere else.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

All those cacao materials, all of them gone. Plus all my cars. So see them. I mean, you've seen some my keyboards, all the brand instruments that I bought. Sally, I lost everything.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

No archive. That sat with me for a very long time because what Freddy Ma represents is the fragility underneath the power. The the the music works that is it that is established. We know that. But the system that produces it, it's held together by individual brilliance and personal sacrifice, not by any industry infrastructure, which is poor, not by any institution, but by people like Uncle Freddie, who gave their lives to this craft, and and the industry benefited so much from it, but wasn't protected. And then you have the artists themselves. I spoke to Yal Stone.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Adonko Famiko Fa De Adefa.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

He created that. It's my favorite. It's one of the most recognized pieces of commercial music in recent times. And you when you go down the season, uh, the episodes through the season, uh one of our guests, uh Evans, spoke about how Adonko overturned the markets for Alumogen Beatles. One of the most impactful commercials. But here's what most people don't know. His face was never on the ad. For most of you, you only knew he produced it when you watched the episode. The jingle he made made the brand famous. The brand didn't make him famous. What it gave him was a stepping stone. Other companies heard the song and they came calling. They called on him to do so many ads for them. But the recognition, the credits, that went to the brand. That went to the products, not the person who made the sound. He gave an advice to any young artist getting a brief from a brand, which is to learn copyright law before you create, not after.

SPEAKER_06 10:34

I will advise them to learn about the copyright laws first. Because me, I had to go through a struggle before going back to learn.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Because the creative talent exists in abundance in this country. The business literacy and the legal protection do not. Then came Andreaka, the president of the Advertising Association of Ghana, and also the big man running day into ages, the one of the biggest advertising agencies in the country. He came to show me the other side of all of this, the system that is supposed to govern all of this. FDA reviewing ads without marketing expertise, um, approval timelines that can kill any campaign before it launches, an advertising bill that's been through two presidents' cabinets and still hasn't been passed. Scientists reading marketing metaphors literally.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

People will literally say that it would you grow wings when you drink it. But in marketing is a metaphor.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

But what Andrew said that matters the most for this season's um argument is this. Stop remixing popular songs. Commission original work. Because when you remix someone's hit song, you are renting equity. You don't own it per se. The artist can license the same song to your competitor. But when you commission an original score, it's yours. You own it, it belongs to you. And that lives with your brand forever. You can argue his point out. Because he pointed out to Sunlight that their jingle, Sunlight, that jingle wasn't anyone's song. It was Sunlight song. And it's still in people's heads decades later. I mean, everybody get on down is also in my head decades later, but he makes a solid argument. Now, everything I just told you, all of that craft, all of that intention, all of those decisions that happen in the boardrooms and in studios, does it actually land? To answer this, I brought Maunya and Raymond into the studio, a Gen Z and a millennial. Very interesting conversation we had. Because these two people are the people the ads were made for, the jingles we were trying to figure out if it actually works and why it works. They are the ones we we they were the ads were made for. So we brought them into the studio for a conversation. And what they told me, this is where it gets very interesting. Maunya, who is a Gen Z, told me she hated the Adonko jingle. She hated it. It was on every single channel every time she turned on the TV. For for over a year, that's all she was hearing. She was irritated by it. Then I asked her to sing it. Do you know the interesting thing? She sang every word of it.

SPEAKER_06 13:54

I know.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

What's a jingle you can sing right now without thinking?

SPEAKER_06 14:01

Sing. I don't go for me. I really, I actually hate it.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

You hate it?

SPEAKER_06 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

So that creates a paradox. The thing that annoyed her the most is the thing she can't forget. Her body won't let her do that. And that somatic engineering does exactly what Carnell described. And she didn't even know it. She didn't even know it was happening. Raymond, the millennial, he went out to buy Kivogari, not because he was moved by the jingle, but because the hype on social media made him feel like it's something he wanted to be a part of. But you know what's interesting about him as well? He can still sing Cargo Jin Beatles from decades ago, the same ad that Anko Fredma produced. The format has changed, the mechanism hasn't. And for Maunya, she said something that every brand manager needs to hear.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

She said, Okay, this and this is it. But must we always dance?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Remember how we said that the ads will make you dance, they will move your body? She's not saying music doesn't work. She's saying you need to earn it. Don't just throw a beat on something and expect me to care, right? Um, she also asked the question I may dance to the song or sing along, but will I buy it? He wants you to give her something worth feeling, and that feeling would most likely move her to buy. And then came the marketers, the people who actually had to make the call, Eriokwa and Evans. And between the two of them, they proved the entire thesis of the season with real numbers. Ariel Qua had tried three times to use specification-based jingles for Tech News phones. Um, three times. Their jingles were staffed with features: 64 gig, camera specs, battery capacity, all of that set to music. One campaign attracted fewer than five participants for a whole brand, the size of techno. She couldn't even sing her own song back to me when I asked her to.

SPEAKER_07 16:26

First off, they can't remember. And then, two, they cannot sing along. It's not something that's her cheek.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yes, exactly. So then she took a Stone Boy song that was already trending, wrote the script herself, attached a TikTok dance challenge, and got 200 million impressions. They were targeting 10 million. So we were achieved by 240%. And here's the part that matters. It worked because both sides, Techno and Stone Boy, could see themselves in it. Stone Boy wasn't being asked to sell specs, he was being asked to uh do what he already does. Make people feel something. And when the brand aligned with the artist's truth, it was the most seamless collaboration that they had ever had. When they tried to force technical content on him before, he resisted. And he was right too. Did it teach you that people don't really care about your product? Yes, it's actually made me realize that they care about how you make them feel about your product. Exactly. Because it was off-brand for him. Evans took it further. 17 years across DiAgio, Unilever, and now Kivo. He gave me the sharpest strategic uh distinction of the season. Borrowed music gives you a moment. Commissioned music gives you a legacy. You remember what Andriaka said? Well, Evan said out of 10,000 arts produced in Ghana over the last decades, the ones you still remember are the ones that are original songs. Not because of the product, but because of the sound itself. And the sound belongs to the brand, not a trending artist who will have to find a new hit every month.

SPEAKER_08 18:32

Your own song that's for a brand is to help with recall. Even if you are old and you hear the song, you remember the brand, not the artist or the moment that you heard the song. So my biggest advice is create assets that the brand can own and let the music speak with the brand's tone.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Because it stays forever. Those sounds will outlive every campaign they were ever a part of. And then Ellie Daniel Wilson brought us into the future. Or if you like, he took us into the future concerning AI-generated music. Consumers taking an artist's voice and remixing it into whatever genre they want. The collapse of the control over sound itself, essentially. But here's what Ellie confirmed for me as well: that the tools change. The principles don't. If AI can generate any sound and it's getting there, then what becomes scarce? Cultural authenticity. The thing that Dr. Fiagbedi talked about in episode one, remember? Contextual meaning. Sound that carries the weight of a specific community. You can prompt AI to make a jingle, but you can't prompt it to understand what Jamma means to Jamma means to a gun, or Jamma means in a in a gun culture, or forget gun culture, what jamma means to uh university culture. Think the vandals, the quinty boys, the cat boys. You can't prompt it to know what a town cries gong uh does to a person who grew up hearing it.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

If I want to make you happy, I use that sound, then I put you in that mood as well. And that would be the Herculean task there. And then three, it has to be culturally relevant, and that is where AI cannot really crack.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

At least not yet. So, how did a few seconds of sound actually become decades of memory? Here's what I found. It's not the music, it's the system underneath the music. A jingle that lasts decades in Ghana is not just catchy. It works because it plucks into something that was already running long before advertising existed in this country. Sound carries authority in Ghana. Dr. Fiagbedi told us. From the town cries gong to the talking drum. We are a people who stop when we hear purposeful sound. A jingo doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to fight for your attention the way uh it does in other markets. It inherits a tradition of sound as instruction. The body does the remembering. When you dance to it, you encode it. It's not in your ears anymore, it's in your nervous system. Carnell told us that. And that's why Maunya hates the Adonko jingle, but can't sing every single word of it. Her body won't let her forget it. You know why? The simplicity is the delivery mechanism. The jingles that last are the ones that any child can sing to. It's not the spec sheets of any brand set to music. It's not the complex compositions. It's the ones that strip everything down to one phrase, one melody, one feeling. Think cargo gin bites. Think sunlight.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Think I feel pa-ta pa.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Cultural rootedness is the encore, and high life works not because it's trendy, but because it's familiar. The sound that sells in Ghana is one that already feels like home and their feeling outlasts the format. Jingles on TV, songs on TikTok, dance challenges on social media. The delivery mechanism keeps changing, but the principle underneath everything never does. If it makes you feel something, you remember it. If it doesn't, I don't care how many gigabytes you put in the lyrics. I won't remember it. But here's one thing none of them said. None of my guests said this. Not because they didn't know, but I believe they probably didn't see the full picture as I have seen now. Because each one of them gave me their piece.

unknown 23:46

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Fyagberg gave me history. Dr. Stone gave me the sacrifice that he had put in. Andrew, the regulator, he told me about the structure. Maunya and Raymond, who are the consumers, they gave me proof of all of this. And then the marketers gave me the strategy. But sitting across from all of them, across all of these episodes, something became clear that none of them said individually. And that's my job to do. That's what I set out to find. Ghana, my beloved country, our beloved country, doesn't just use music in advertising. Ghana's advertising is music. In most markets across the world, music is a tool you add to a campaign, a layer, nice to have. But in Ghana, music is not a layer. Music is the foundation on which everything is built. And the reason, the real reason, is that our entire communication tradition is built on sound carrying meaning. The town crier's gong says, listen. The talking drum says, feel. The jingle says, remember. It's the same system. It's been the same system for centuries. We just put it in new containers, radio, TV, TikTok. But the principle underneath all of it has never changed. Sound is how information travels in this culture. Sound is how communities organize. Sound is how trust is built. That's why a few seconds of sound can become decades of memory. Because in Ghana, sound was never just entertainment. Sound is infrastructure. And the industry has been running on this infrastructure every single day for as long as we know it, without ever naming it. Until now. I started this season thinking I was going to document how music works in Ghanaian advertising. But what I actually documented is something way bigger. A communication system that the industry uses every day but has never really articulated. The producers feel it, the marketers deploy it, the artists voice it. The consumers, you and I, we absorb it. But nobody has sat all of these people down to connect the chain. That's what this season was. The first attempt to draw the full map. And now that the map exists, the question isn't whether music in Ghanaian advertising works or matters. We already answered that. What other systems are hiding in plain sight, or should I say plain sound? Waiting for someone to sit the right people down and connect the pieces. You know, our marketing and communications industry is an amazing one. It's produced some brilliant work. It's moved the economy. It's done so much. But it's gone undocumented. And that's what Mart Conversations is here to do. We are documenting the law, the knowledge that exists in the rooms, in the studios, in the boardrooms, in the heads of people who have been doing this work for decades, but nobody has really written down. This was season one, and it was just the beginning.