On June 21, 2007, I arrived at a compound house in La Paz, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. A relatively modest house, it was the home to Nana Ampadu, international recording artist and highlife legend, who died last week. As the Ghanaian guitarist Kyekyeku recounted in an Instagram memorial, “3 decades ago Nana Ampadu declared that he wanted to make his music his ‘own way’ at a time when the musical landscape was fast changing and the dose of ‘foreign’ elements and influences was overwhelming.” As the leader of the African Brothers Band, which was formed in 1963 and became known as the “Beatles of Ghana,” Ampadu went on to write more than 400 songs in his decades-long career. Ampadu was recognized as Nwontofohene (Singer-in-Chief) by the government of Ghana  in 1973. In the interview below, which is excerpted from a longer interview conducted as part of dissertation research on the history and culture of driving in Ghana, Ampadu discusses his experience as a musician in the tumultuous 1980s and 1990s, and we talk about the role religion played in the public sphere of our respective countries during that time. I began by asking him about his 1983 hit song, “Driver Adwuma” (or “Driver’s Work” or Adwuma Yi Ye Den (Drivers) [“This Work is Hard”], popularly known as “Drivers”).