Highlife's Origins and Colonialism

In 1874 Ghana became a British colony known as The Gold Coast Crown Colony. During the early days of colonialism traditional West African musical styles uch as gombe, ashiko, dagomba, and fanteosibisabam could be heard throughout the region.  Colonialism brought a sudden influx of western goods, ideas and music.  Colonists brought with them the sounds of European brass bands, sea shanties, ragtime and christian music.  Not only did the early colonists introduce new musical forms to the region but they also brought instruments such as trumpets, saxaphones, harmonicas and especially guitars.  All of these new elements would eventually combine to form highlife music.  In upcoming posts I will discuss in detail the development of the different stlyes of highlife and the social and geographic factors that resulted in the different branches of highlife music.  In the meantime enjoy some great highlife from The City Boys Band!

Highlife refrences

These sites have loads of information on highlife.  The blog "Awesome tapes from Africa" is a great place to download highlife music for free.  Just type in "highlife" in the search field and download the tapes.  If your not comfortable downloading these songs for free there are plenty of highlife recordings available on itunes.  I recommend the albums "Nigeria Special" and "Ghana Special".

http://www.afropop.org/explore/style_info/ID/17/Highlife/

http://www.alisdair.com/africanpages/africanhighlife.html

http://www.awesometapes.com/

West African Highlife Music!

       

    Highlife is a musical form that originated in Ghana in the 1920s.  By the late 1920's High life bands were popping up throughout Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.  High Life is essentially a mixture of African rhythms and melodies with western sounds and instruments.  Early Highlife bands combined European foxtrots and Caribbean kaiso, with African rhythms of Liberia (dagomba), Sierra Leone (ashiko and goombe).  As the sounds of American big band jazz, R&B, blues, rock & roll and other western sounds began to be heard throughout West Africa, the Highlife bands there incorporated these new styles into their playing.  The instrumentation included African drums, harmonicas, guitars, and accordions. During 1930s three distinct styles of High Life emerged: ballroom dance style for the upper class elite, a village brass band style, and rural guitar bands playing a less Westernized style for a less Westernized audience.

       

         The 1950s and 60s are considered the golden age of Highlife.  Bands such as Osibisa, The Tempos, The City Boys, and The African Brothers ruled the dancehalls throughout much of Western Africa.   Highlife records were played on the radio and sold well in West Africa.

                                               

    The popularity of Highlife began to decline in the 1970s.  A genre known as Juju began to be favored in western Nigeria.  However, in eastern Nigeria highlife was still popular and bands like The Oriental Brothers were in high demand.