Highlife

For other uses, see High life (disambiguation).

Highlife is a music genre that originated in Ghana at the turn of the 20th century and incorporated the traditional harmonic 9th, as well as melodic and the main rhythmic structures in traditional Akan music, and married them with Western instruments. Highlife was associated with the local African aristocracy during the colonial period. By the 1930s, Highlife spread via Ghanaian workers to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia and Nigeria, among other West African countries, where the music is now very popular.

Highlife is characterised by jazzy horns and multiple guitars which lead the band. Recently it has acquired an uptempo, synth-driven sound (see Daddy Lumba). Igbo highlife and Joromi are subgenres.[1][2][3]

This arpeggiated highlife guitar part is modeled after an Afro-Cuban guajeo.[4] The pattern of attack-points is nearly identical to the 3-2 clave motif guajeo as shown below. The bell pattern known in Cuba as clave is indigenous to Ghana and Nigeria, and is used in highlife.[5]

Top: clave. Bottom highlife guitar part.

Artists

Artists who perform the Highlife genre include:

Ghana

Nigeria

Sierra Leone

Highlife in jazz

References

  1. ↑ "Igbo Highlife Music". Pamela Stitch. 17 July 2011. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
  2. ↑ Oti, Sonny (2009). Highlife Music in West Africa. African Books Collective. ISBN 978-978-8422-08-2.
  3. ↑ Davies, Carole Boyce (2008). Encyclopedia of the African diaspora: Origins, experiences, and culture. ABC-CLIO, Inc. p. 525. ISBN 978-1-85109-700-5.
  4. ↑ Eyre, Banning (2006: 9). "Highlife guitar example" Africa: Your Passport to a New World of Music. Alfred Pub. ISBN 0-7390-2474-4
  5. ↑ Peñalosa, David (2010: 247). The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. ISBN 1-886502-80-3.
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