Highlife is more than music; it is a reflection of Ghana’s social transformation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dr Eric Sunu Doe, Senior lecturer, Department of Music, University of Ghana (UG) has said.
Speaking in an interview on Channel One TV, he explained that highlife emerged from multiple social spaces, each contributing to its sound and identity.
He outlined three broad strands of highlife. The first grew out of brass and regimental bands, where locally trained musicians infused indigenous melodies into Western military structures, creating freer rhythms suitable for dancing and eventually evolving into styles like Adaha.
The second was associated with the African elite and educated middle-class citizens who gathered in clubs and ballrooms in urban centres.
The third developed through guitar bands and palm-wine traditions, making highlife accessible to the wider public.
Though these strands came from different angles; military, elite and grassroots, they shared a common thread: adaptation. Ghanaian musicians reshaped foreign influences into something distinctly their own.
For Dr. Doe, the story of highlife is inseparable from the story of modern Ghana. It is a nation formed through encounter, fusion and cultural reinvention.
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