Originating back in the 1780s, Highlife, Ghana’s musical heritage and identity describes multiple local fusions of African meter and Western jazz melodies. Known for its diverse and unique nature, highlife uses the melodic and main rhythmic structures of African traditional music, typically played by Western instruments.
Highlife is considered to be one of Ghana’s biggest music exports and traditional musical heritage. The genre gained popularity in the 19th century after E.T. Mensah and other pioneers such as Nigerian legends Cardinal Rex Lawson and Alex Uwaifo perfected the sound by infusing traditional African drums with Western native blues. The musical arrangements, compositions, diction, etc of highlife sounds are inspired mostly by folklores, folktales, wise sayings, adages, etc.
In the Ghanaian highlife fraternity, legends such as Nana Amakye Dede, J.A. Adofo, Paa Bobo, Nana Ampadu, Nana Tuffour, Tomy Wiredu, Daddy Lumba, among others have all paid homage to the genre and their roots with their unique and diverse music. The musicians have not only recognized and pushed the genre but also made positive impacts on listeners and enthusiasts of the cultural genre with their music.
Recently, UNESCO described Highlife as Ghana’s musical heritage symbolizing its rapidly-growing trend and buzz. The wider range of audiences and global reach of the genre in the past decades testify to its evolution and transition.
Meanwhile, Ghanaian disc jockey, DJ Ashmen has called on the country’s musicians to brand and push highlife if they wish to break boundaries in the international music market.
Despite being a unique sound, and Ghana’s musical heritage, Ghanaian artists are yet to capitalize on it and monetize it globally. For this, DJ Ashmen is campaigning for the country’s owned genre.
Speaking in a recent interview, the DJ argued that the country’s artists stand a chance to reach a wider range of global audiences if they focus on the Highlife genre.
”Forget global attention with ‘adopted’ music sounds that you are doing. We have a unique music identity, Highlife and Hiplife and we must be intentional about getting it out there.”
“I don’t know where the strong belief that doing foreign genre will give us global appeal is coming from. As a small country, Jamaica has been able to build a strong music identity with Reggae and Dancehall and we are happy to associate with it,” he relates.
He further argued that he and some of the industry’s stakeholders foresaw the consequences of Ghanaian acts recognizing and cherishing foreign genres, urging for highlife and its associated genres such as palm wine and burger highlife to be reintroduced and focused on.
“Some of us saw the danger ahead and the devastating consequences for the music industry long ago when we realized that our artists love and cherish foreign things more than ours. I always receive bashing from beatmakers when I talk about this because they feel they know better,” he stated.
He continued, “But I’m throwing a challenge for us to conduct research about Ghana music from the days of palm wine, highlife music, burger highlife originated by George Darko and Hiplife, we have our identity in all these music styles.”
