Answer: Poets.
More detail:
Of the 559 "votes" cast for different individual artists, 382 votes were cast for poets (classified as authors who write poetry either primarily or exclusively), 81 votes for writers (classified as authors who write multiple genres more-or-less equally), and 67 votes for musicians.
The full results:
Most Influential Types of Artists
1. Poets: 382 mentions, 68% of total mentions
2. Writers: 15%
3. Musicians: 12%
4. Novelists: 4%
5. Biblical: 2%
Other (Playwrights, Philosophers, Teachers): 1%
Observations:
This category is the most biased of all. Not only is it difficult to separate "poets" from "writers" from "novelists" (and endless debate could be had about who should be slotted where), but the question asked of contributing poets specifically asks for "which poets" have been influential, pre-biasing the answer. What's notable is how, despite that, almost one-third of the responses given fell outside of that category, showing that the inspirations for Ghana's poets are broad and not easily summarised. The most noteworthy "non-poet" category is musicians, of which (it should be noted) none are African, and all of the most popular are either Jamaican reggae stars (Mutabaruka, Bob Marley, Joseph Hill) or American hip-hop artists (Nas, Tupac, Mos Def).
More Information:
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