Typical instruments Guitar
horns
vocals | ||
Stylistic origins Palm-wine music
African music
Méringue Cultural origins 1900s (decade), Ghana and Nigeria | ||
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, and Gambia among other West African countries, where the music is now very popular. Highlife has a part to play in most of the present day Nigerian and Ghanaian music as most of their artistes fuse it with their style of music.
Contents
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.
This arpeggiated highlife guitar part is modeled after an Afro-Cuban guajeo. 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.
Artists
Artists who perform the Highlife genre include: