Arts and GH Heritage
10 Things You Need To Know About Ghana and Ghanaian Culture
There is a reason why Ghana has become the go-to destination for travelers looking to experience one of Africa’s most vibrant countries. Ghana is a country ripe with entertainment, tradition, exquisite landscapes and phenomenal food, and if you’re one of many who has developed a fascination with the country, you might want to learn a bit more about its culture. Here are ten things you need to know about Ghanaian culture.
Food
You can tell a lot about a culture by its cuisine. Historically, Ghanaians love to prepare dishes that include a starchy component (fufu or waakye), which typically goes with a soup or stew and protein. Most soups and stews have a tomato base and come with beef, goat, lamb, chicken, shrimp, fish or crab. Some popular stapes are jollof, banku, red red, tuo zaafi, boiled yam with kontomire stew and plantain with egg stew. Most dishes are eaten by hand, and a popular dish like fufu is scooped up in pieces with the right hand and then dipped in an accompanying soup (typically goat soap).
Tipping
While we’re on the topic of food, you should note that tipping is not a requirement in Ghana. In fact, it comes as a surprise when diners tip. Tipping should be at the discretion of the patron, but keep in mind that many servers work on paltry wages so adding a tip is a kind gesture they truly appreciate.
Language
Of the more than 90 languages spoken in the country, English is Ghana’s official language with more than 80% of the population speaking it fluently. English was first spoken when England colonized Ghana (then the Gold Coast) in 1867. Even after the country’s independence in 1957, it continued to use English as its official language to conduct government and business affairs. It is also the standard language used in schools.
Sayings, Gestures & Slang
Don’t be surprised if a stranger hisses or smooches at you while around town. Hissing and smooching is a signal to gain someone’s attention and is not something to take offense to. Other popular phrases include “Chale” (which means “my friend”), “Saaaa” (meaning “really?”) and “Akwaaba” (meaning “Welcome”). A sucking of teeth means a person is frustrated.
Music
Before Afrobeats became a hit music genre across the globe, it was deep-rooted in the country and continues to make a huge impact. Ask anyone about Kwami Eugene, Kidi or Sarkodie and you’re sure to be greeted with a smile since their music adds life to any party or get together. What makes music in Ghana special is that it never loses its heritage. Before Afrobeats became popular, highlife dominated the scene, and up until this day, if a DJ plays icons like Fela Kuti or Ebo Taylor, you can almost guarantee the crowd will hit the dance floor.
Festivals
Festivals have increasingly become a part of the Ghanaian experience, especially during the holidays when many tourists visit. From Afrochella to CHALE WOTE, there are countless festivals that cater to individual tastes. In 2018, festivals attracted more than 30,000 people who all experienced the country’s art, music, food and history. You can view the more than 30 festivals hosted each year here.
Customs
Ghanaians are very, very communal so don’t be taken aback if you’re greeted with hugs and back pats when you meet someone for the first time. It is also not uncommon to see a group of people eating a dish from the same plate together. And unlike in many Western countries, Ghanaians like to be in close proximity of each other rather than needing personal space. Also, when you enter a room, it is customary to greet with either a Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening. Never give or receive money with your left hand and always invite others to eat with you. (They will almost always say “Thank you” – which means “No, thank you”) and then continue to eat your meal.
Fashion
It is no secret that African fabric dominates Ghanaian fashion. From bold patterns to intricate designs, African fabric remains entrenched in Ghanaian culture. Kente cloth, which became popular with African Americans during the Civil Right Movement, is originally from Ghana. Typically, consumers will buy the fabric of choice from a local market, then a tailor will sew their design. Other options are to buy made-to-wear African clothing made of lycra or elastane, which fits all shapes and body types. The latter is especially popular with female pants and dresses.
Religion
Ghana has a huge religious population. A 2018 analysis reported by The Guardian found that of over 106 countries, Ghana and Georgia were the only two countries where people under 40 were more religious than their older compatriots. Christianity remains to be the largest religion in Ghana taking up 70% of the entire population. Following Christianity is Islam, which makes up 25%. Of the 70% who make up Christianity, 18% are Protestant, 13% are Roman Catholic and 5% are Traditionalists.
Tribes…Lots of tribes
There are more than 100 ethnic groups living in Ghana. The Akan tribe is the largest, encompassing approximately 20 million people. The most spoken language of the Akan language is Twi (which comes in four different variations). Other popular tribes in Ghana include Ewe, Fante, Ashanti and Ga.
Article authored by Zaina Adamu. Originally published by Demand Africa. Read originally article here.
There’s a moment, somewhere between shaping wet clay with your hands and watching it harden under the sun, when Ghana stops being a destination and starts becoming a conversation.
It’s in that quiet exchange — between visitor and craft, between curiosity and tradition — that the country reveals itself most honestly.
A growing wave of immersive travel experiences is inviting visitors to step beyond sightseeing and into making.
Across a curated seven-day journey, participants move through artisanal spaces where heritage is not displayed behind glass but practiced daily.
In pottery workshops, the rhythm of the wheel echoes techniques preserved over generations. In batik studios, fabric becomes storytelling — each motif layered with symbolism, memory, and identity.
And in black soap making, there’s a return to the basics: ash, oils, patience, and knowledge passed hand to hand.
These experiences unfold alongside excursions that ground the journey in Ghana’s ecological and urban contrasts — from the suspended canopy walkways of Kakum National Park to the kinetic energy of Accra. But it is the time spent with artisans that lingers longest.
In many ways, this is a quiet resistance to the fast pace of modern tourism. It asks visitors to slow down, to listen, and to participate. For Ghanaians, it’s a renewed appreciation of crafts often overlooked in everyday life.
For international travellers, it’s an invitation to understand culture not as performance, but as practice.
By the end of the week, what visitors carry home is more than souvenirs. It’s a tactile memory — shaped, dyed, and stirred by hand — of a place where tradition is still alive, and still evolving.
By the time a trotro rattles from a quiet Accra suburb into the dense energy of Jamestown, an entire theatre of human experience has already unfolded.
Hawkers negotiate through traffic with impossible grace, passengers exchange sharp political commentary between stops, and handwritten slogans on taxis preach survival, faith, and hustle.
For spoken word artist Ama Asantewa Diaka, these fleeting encounters are not background noise; they are raw creative material.
The poet, widely known as Poetra Asantewa, describes Accra as “trying to kill me and save me at the same time” — a line that captures the uneasy rhythm of Ghana’s capital more accurately than any tourism brochure could.
It is a city where frustration and invention exist side by side. The same traffic congestion, unstable electricity, and overcrowded transport systems that exhaust residents also shape one of West Africa’s most vibrant contemporary art scenes.
That contradiction has become central to a generation of Accra’s artists, many of whom transform social pressure into performance, fashion, film, and music.
In neighbourhoods like Jamestown, murals climb colonial-era walls while poets perform beside fishermen’s canoes and experimental musicians rehearse through power cuts. Creativity here is rarely detached from daily struggle.
Poetra’s reflections, shared during conversations around the documentary Accra Power, reveal a city constantly remixing itself. Her inspiration does not emerge from isolation or silence, but from movement — from overheard conversations, crowded buses, and the emotional tension of urban life.
In Accra, art is not merely produced. It is survived, negotiated, and carried home through traffic at dusk.
The words arrived before the movement did—cold, clinical, almost accusatory—flashing across an LED screen as if attempting to pin a living body into fixed meaning.
Then Johana Malédon stepped into the light and quietly dismantled every label in sight.
At the 2026 Market for African Performing Arts, Malédon’s conceptual solo became one of the festival’s most unsettling and memorable interventions, not because it shouted, but because it resisted.
Her body moved in fragments and spirals, sometimes surrendering to the language projected beside her, sometimes rebelling against it with startling precision.
The LED screen behaved like an authority figure—naming, interrupting, categorising. The dancer answered with ambiguity.
In many African societies, identity is often negotiated publicly: through language, tribe, nationality, gender, class, and even accent. Ghana is no exception. From everyday assumptions tied to surnames and ethnicity to social expectations around womanhood and respectability, labels shape how people are seen long before they speak for themselves. Malédon’s performance exposed that tension with rare clarity.
What made the work compelling was its refusal to offer resolution. Instead, it suggested that liberation may exist in remaining undefined. The body, constantly shifting, became evidence against permanence itself.
The technology never overwhelmed the performance. If anything, the glowing screen mirrored the modern world—social media feeds, bureaucratic forms, algorithmic identities—all demanding instant definition. Malédon responded with something stubbornly human: contradiction, vulnerability, and movement that could not be neatly translated.
In that refusal lay the performance’s deepest provocation.
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