Onyina

Whenever the word Highlife is mentioned, what comes into mind first is Ghanaian music and Ramblers Dance Band. In fact to most people, Highlife is Ghana and Ghana is highlife, but the truth is that Highlife did not originate in Ghana; in fact it was played in Sierra Leone before it ever reached the shores of Ghana.

Before the arrival of the Spanish guitar in Ghana other West African countries or if I should say tribes played in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali and Guinea played a form of music which can be classified as the ancestor of our Guitar-Band music.

They used stringed instruments such as the Kora, Gourd guitar which is called Gojee in Ghana by the Northerners and Mbulum-Bumba which is used by the Saharan West Africans.

Highlife is common to all Anglophone West Africans. In fact the first recorded highlife music was by George Williams Aingo in 1927; A Sierra Leonean. Our Ghanaian pioneers are the guitarist Kwame “Sam” Asare, who invented the form of Yaa Amponsah as we know it today. The other forms of popular highlife we know are Amponsah, Kwao, Odon son and A, D G. Dagomba is actually a Liberian invention which was adopted by Ghana (Gold Coast) and is what we call Nsadwaase music (Palm-Wine guitar.)

These rhythms were derived from Asante Nyomkro, Fanti Osode and Osibisaba, Ga Kpanlogo, Ewe Boboobo etc. The kind of Highlife which became synonymous with E.T. Mensah, Ramblers etc is actually not Highlife at all; it can be classified as soft Jazz, because it utilized jazz harmonies, jazz chords and jazz improvisations.

The guitar band music is actually the true highlife; in fact we can’t talk about guitar band music without mentioning Koo Nimo who is a foremost highlife guitarist. There were others before him like Kwao Mensah , EK’s and modern players like K. Gyasi, F. Kenya, City Boys, Okukuseku, Kakaiku, Onyina, Ampadu, Akwaboah, Adofo to mention but a few.

Then came the mid 60s to mid 70s guitar bands like Konadu, Atakora-Manu, Kofi Sammy, Ampofo Agyei. From early mid 70’s the characters of highlife began to change with emergence of Afro-Beat and other foreign forms; but the major change was the release of “Ako Te Brofo” by George Darko which spawned myriads of hybrid highlife.

Today highlife has been transformed into hiplife. Hiplife is yet to be recognised internationally, currently if is known only in Ghana and by Ghanaians communities abroad!