Highlife

Highlife is the umbrella term for the urban dance-band music that developed in Ghana and Nigeria across the twentieth century. Tempos run from 100 to 140 BPM. The core sound pairs two or three interlocking electric guitars (a lead, a rhythm and sometimes a tenor), electric bass, a drum kit, congas and other Latin-influenced percussion, and a horn section of trumpets, trombones and saxophones. Vocals are sung in English, Pidgin, Akan (especially Twi), Yoruba and Igbo; lyrics treat love, marriage, social commentary, philosophy and proverbs. The rhythmic feel mixes Akan and Yoruba percussion with the Afro-Cuban clave imported through 78 rpm records in the 1930s and 40s.

Highlife emerged in the 1920s in coastal Ghana, then the Gold Coast, when colonial brass-band repertoire merged with local palm-wine guitar styles. The name reportedly came from the high-life dance hall culture of the colonial elite, contrasted with street-level street-pop. E.T. Mensah and the Tempos became the dominant 1950s big band; in Nigeria, Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya and Rex Lawson led the Lagos and Eastern Region scenes. After the 1967 Biafran War the Igbo guitar-band tradition flourished — Oliver de Coque, the Oriental Brothers and Stephen Osita Osadebe drove the 1970s. Fela Kuti's Afrobeat (singular) is a direct descendant of highlife. The contemporary Ghanaian wave runs through Daddy Lumba, Kojo Antwi and Sarkodie.

Listen first to the two-guitar interplay — the rhythm guitar carries a repeating cyclical pattern in mid-range tones while the lead embroiders shorter melodic figures, often using the West African pattern of starting phrases off the beat. The horn section punctuates verses with short tutti stabs every two bars. Compared to its descendant Afrobeat, highlife tracks are tighter — four to six minutes rather than twenty — and the bass moves more melodically.

E.T. Mensah's All for You (recorded 1953–58, available on the African Trumpet King compilations) is the foundational document. For the 1970s Igbo guitar-band wave, Oliver de Coque's People's Club of Nigeria series is essential. Pat Thomas's Coming Home (1980) and the recent re-releases on Strut and Soundway are the cleanest introductions for new listeners.

The Soundway compilation Ghana Soundz (2002) and the Strut series Ghana Special triggered a Western reappraisal of 1970s highlife and helped establish the careers of contemporary players like Ebo Taylor late in his life. Taylor began recording in the 1960s but only toured the US for the first time in his late seventies.