The Ankos Festival also known as Takoradi street carnival or Masquerade Festival is an

annual Annual may refer to: * Annual publication, periodical publications appearing regularly once per year **Yearbook ** Literary annual * Annual plant * Annual report * Annual giving * Annual, Morocco, a settlement in northeastern Morocco * Annuals (b ...

event celebrated by the people of

Takoradi Sekondi-Takoradi is a city in Ghana comprising the twin cities of Sekondi and Takoradi. It is the capital of Sekondi – Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly and the Western Region of Ghana. Sekondi-Takoradi is the region's largest city and an indus ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. Its main attraction is dozens of groups of people or teams dressing in wild outfits who display their skills and

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

s via

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

. The

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

is usually celebrated from 24–26 December of every year, and is popular with

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

Masquerades Groups

These are the list of masquerades groups in

. * Ankos * Cosmos * Holy Cities * Nyanta Boys * Iron Fighters * Unity * Mississipi * Spain * Sunnato * Valencia * Canadians * Chinese * Tumus * Ohyewakomem * Supreme * Oil city * Millionaires * Unicon * Addyzee * USA * Nyanta Boys and Girls * Punch * Gye Nyame * Miami

Ethnography

The various masquerades groups come together in the township of Takoradi to display their

skill A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

and other

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

to the general public through dancing and singing of various songs using brass band. The festival consist of different gender groups joining from various walks of life. It involves the young and the old who are much passionate about the culture and art during this festive moment. Their fancy outfit for the festival varies from one group to another. During the festival the brass band team play all kind of sounds, songs, melodies and tunes to spice up the festivity and also increase the excitement of various participant and watchers of the event who stand across the road, rooftops and balcony. It is believed that the first fancy club set up was the Ankos Fancy Club

The Year of Return

The Year of Return was to mark the return of black people from the

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

to meet and learn about

ian culture and partake in local traditions and so forth. The Year of Return had a massive impact on the Masquerade festival because it had a lot of tourists, the majority being black people from the diaspora trooping into Takoradi to celebrate the festival.

Festival Anthem

The son
'Made in Tadi'
by Ghanaian highlife artiste, Kofi Kinaata is regarded by many as the anthem for this period. Born and bred in

Effiakuma Effiakuma is a residential town in the Western region of Ghana. It is about 10 kilometres from Takoradi the regional capital. It was built in the early 1960s by the then president of the country Kwame Nkrumah. There are about three general pla ...

, one of the suburbs of Takoradi and home to some indigenes of the area, the song gives a beautiful trajectory of this event (that has grown to become a festival) and how things pan out during that period. It also gives insight on how life in Takoradi during Christmas and how people from all walks of life mark it. Made in Tadi also gives a record of some of the fancy clubs that take part in the festival.

2019 Artist

Kofi Kinaata Martin King Arthur (born 15 April 1990) popularly known as Kofi Kinaata is a Ghanaian musician and songwriter from Takoradi. He is noted for his Fante rap and freestyle and therefore known as the Fante Rap God (FRG). Apart from his rap prowess, ...

* Quamina Mp

Gallery

File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 1.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 2.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 3.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 5.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 4.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 7.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 8.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 9.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 10.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 11.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 15.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 16.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 18.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 19.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 22.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 23.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 25.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 27.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 18.jpg File:Takoradi Masquerade Festival 28.jpg

References

{{reflist Annual events in Ghana Sekondi-Takoradi Carnivals in Ghana