Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy

Bolgatanga

Alogte Oho, also credited as Alogte Oho Jonas, comes from Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana and is Frafra. Bandcamp Daily described him as 27 in November 2016. He joined his Catholic church choir at five, and as a teenager met Lizzy, Patricia and Florence, who became his backing singers, the Sounds of Joy; he is choirmaster and chairman of his church and by 2016 had released five albums. A hometown festival biography says he released a debut album in 2007 and broke through in Ghana with his third album in 2012.

His music is Frafra gospel, where gospel refers to the lyrics rather than the musical style, blending highlife, reggae rhythms, brass and synthesizers. Of reggae he said it is Bob Marley, but this is gospel, Frafra gospel.

Philophon

In about January 2013, by Bandcamp Daily's account, the German drummer and vibraphonist Max Weissenfeldt, formerly of the Poets of Rhythm and half of the Whitefield Brothers, heard Frafra gospel on a loudspeaker in Bolgatanga, accounts differ between a bus station and a shop near the market, and tracked Oho down in a small bar. Weissenfeldt founded the Berlin label Philophon and produced him. "Mam Yinne Wa" came out as a two-song seven-inch single in November 2016, and an album of the same name followed on Philophon on November 8, 2019. In November 2019 Weissenfeldt moved his studio from Berlin to Kumasi, Ghana.

O Yinne! (June 2, 2023) was recorded mainly at Weissenfeldt's Joy Sound Studios in Kumasi, with Akule Pepe on guitar, Josie Coppola on drums and Jimi Tenor on tenor saxophone and flute. Songlines' Martin Sinnock gave it four stars, writing that whilst it is highlife music, it is also futuristic and highly inventive, and it was Bandcamp Daily's Album of the Day on June 12, 2023.

On stage

Setlist.fm logs 24 setlists, among them Glastonbury on June 29, 2024, Bristol Beacon and the Jazz Cafe in London in July 2024, Sesc Jazz in Sao Paulo in October 2025 and WOMADelaide on March 9, 2026; they have also played Roskilde and Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival, which Peterson called his absolute favorite moment in 16 years at the festival. A 40-date European tour with Florence Adooni was announced in 2023. Philophon pairs them with the kologo player Guy One in taking Frafra music abroad.