The term “highlife” conjures up many things. For someone in their sixties or seventies from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone or Liberia, it may well inspire primarily nostalgia, because highlife music was THE West African popular music of the 40’s and 50’s, continuing on through the Sixties until its popularity began to fade in the 70’s, though there were still vibrant highlife scenes in Nigeria and Ghana into the 80’s The style has never really died out and I saw recently that a new generation of highlife artists is emerging in Eastern Nigeria. Yet highlife also was strongly associated with the colonial elite in West Africa and so for many it may carry unpleasant associations with a period best left behind. But as a musical style, highlife has a complex and interesting history. Some say its genesis was more than a century ago; other say eighty years. I’ll go out on a limb and say it was the first truly African pop music to transcend borders, cultures and nationalities. Maybe it was simply the first African pop music. But the interesting thing is that it really was an amalgam of Western(American and European) elements, Carribbean elements, both Afro-Cuban (the clave rhythm was prominent) and Trinidadian and various West African traditional elements. It is commonly thought the a key catalyst was arrival in West Africa of repatriated Africans—former slaves or descendents of slaves—from the Caribbean mainly but also the U.S. And of course the colonial element is in play as the requirements of colonial authorities for marching or ceremonial brass bands and also colonial society for band entertainment certainly contributed to highlife’s development. The other interesting thing is that the term “highlife” can refer to three distinct styles of music, which sound significantly different from one another, though clearly there are key elements in common. Probably the most prominent style was the “big band” highlife, which involved trap drums, multiple percussion , guitars, bass, and a full horn section that delivered not only ensemble parts but trumpet and saxophone solos that drew on jazz, as well as vocals. But there was also “guitar band” highlife, which involved usually small ensembles of guitars and multiple African percussion instruments—but not trap drums usually, with call and response vocals. And then there were brass bands in the villages that lacked the size and sophistication of the urban big bands.
I’ve never been a big fan of highlife in any of its manifestations, though I’ve always appreciated the musicianship and that uncanny highlife pulse which is easy-rolling, lilting, and lyrical. It is the type of music you can dance to for hours in a hot climate and as such is quintessential popular African dance music. As a musician, when I performed with Bongos Ikwue & The Groovies in Nigeria, I found it challenging to play to the occasional highlife number Bongos threw into the mix, partly because although I had heard a little highlife in America, I had only passing familiarity with it and partly because I play keyboards which usually have no role in highlife ensembles. Getting that highlife feel was hard for me; I’m not sure I ever really did. As Bongos told me, “you can’t play it like rock!” I found it difficult to lay back in the groove and hit the notes with sufficient restraint and lyricism.
Ghana is generally considered to be the capital of highlife, both because it is generally considered to have originated or at least first flowered there, but also because for at least three decades highlife was so dominant in Ghana’s popular music scene. The Ghanaian government, after Independence, had a policy of supporting indigenous music so musicians were subsidized, instruments were provided, music schools established, venues were sponsored. This certainly played a role in the flourishing highlife scene in Ghana. Nigeria had a very vibrant highlife scene, especially in Eastern Nigeria, but the country was so much bigger than Ghana and had a much more diverse musical palette that highlife never dominated in Nigeria to the extent it did in Ghana.
Among the many classic highlife bands who emerged in Ghana after the initial wave of popular bands such as E.T. Menah’s band, the Tempos, The Ramblers and others, were the Sweet Talks, one of the best and most popular of the “second wave” of highlife bands in Ghana. Their albums were first- rate and they scored many hits though I don’t know that they were ground-breaking. But one of their albums stood out from the rest—mainly because it was not a pure highlife album. Titled “The Kusum Beat”, it was a killer fusion of Highlife, funk and Afrobeat (no doubt absorbing the influence of that noted ex-highlife musician Fela, who was hitting his peak in the early Seventies with his Afrobeat and, it should be noted, Fela performed frequently in Ghana, which was like a second home to him –his mother had been an intimate of Nkrumah). Issued in 1974, “The Kusum Beat”, consists of four tracks that vary the funk/highlife/Afrobeat/folk ingredients in different ways but the results are not easily categorisable. The overall sound reminds me very much of the countless bands I saw in Nigeria, who were doing variations of this mix. Though not only featuring the strongest vocalists and not necessarily the best when it came to compositions, these bands nonetheless had relentless grooves, great for dancing of listening. When I hear “The Kusum Beat”, I immediately think of sitting at a round metal table, sipping Heinekens, chatting with friends in an open air nightclub/bar in Nigeria, watching the dancers. This would go on from say 9:30PM to the early morning, when the heat of the day gave way to maybe not actual cool night air but at least comfortable warmth. There were hundreds of these bands across West Africa in the 70’s Listening to “The Kusum Beat” reminds me of those times but also stands as one of the most enjoyable recordings of that sound in that era.