Sketch of Highlife
Highlife: fused local Ghanaian music, lyrics, themes with music and instruments from abroad, via soldiers, sailors, and mass media.
Three sources of highlife:
- palm wine (guitar) highlife: sailors' music, spread inland from coast in 19th c, and indigenized
- adaha (brass band) highlife: derived from Jamaican soldiers brought to Ghana in 1870 to fight Asanti wars; bands played local tunes
- dance band highlife (jazz/Latin influenced): developed in the 1920s, in elite clubs when dance bands started to play local music
The name "Highlife" refers to the elite character of these clubs.
The music was initially opposed on moral grounds by Church, Britain, and traditionalists. But it was extremely popular throughout multiple regions and classes.
During WWII, many foreign soldiers (British, American...) created market for dance bands playing western music, and highlife incoporated new jazz (swing) influences.
Allied forces also used highlife for local propaganda.
The music was carried by touring bands throughout West Africa, especially Nigeria, where it developed into Juju.
Thus:
- Highlife incorporated musical influences from imperial and colonial powers, but moreover...
- Imperial and colonial actually encouraged its development!, yet
- Highlife is an indigenization, thus decolonization, of foreign musical forms
- Highlife gathers people together across a broad region of West Africa, pointing towards some kind of pan-African sensibility.
