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Highlife: Influential & Joyous Sounds of African & Western M

Peter Walenta | Long Island, New York | 06/30/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I would not have stumbled across this record but for my avid reading of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide columns in the Village Voice (now archived at www.robertchristgau.com). Rough Guide to Highlife (World Music Network; total running time 64:41) appeared in the Dean's List of best recordings of 2003 and ever curious to find out what this music sounded like, I took a chance and bought it. I highly recommend this record to Afro-pop enthusiasts and to world beat fans in general as it is a fine collection of historically significant (and hitherto largely unavailable) highlife music from the 1960's & 1970's.



Highlife is a dance music developed and popularized in the British colonies on the West Coast of Africa. As Graeme Ewens writes in his thoroughly researched sleeve notes, "highlife was one of the first examples of a musical fusion between the old world and the new, and it became a prototype for all African pop." Blending jazz and ragtime music from America with calypso and merengue from the Caribbean and exported to the British African colonies in the 1920's, highlife evolved during the 1940's to include indigenous African rhythms mixed with big band swing style arrangements. Integral to highlife's development over the years was the importing of musical instruments like pianos, trumpets, saxophones, and organs from Europe to the British colonies and then to the newly independent nations of Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. By the 1960's, highlife had further evolved to reflect peoples' hunger for more guitar based latin rhythm bands. This record's music reflects the lighthearted joy that many people felt initially after independence was granted now some 50 years ago. Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah actually actively promoted state sponsorship of these highlife bands along with `training schemes' and state competitions. In the late 1960's many highlife bands stopped touring but the music continued to be played and recorded under the difficult circumstances of the civil war in eastern Nigeria. By the 1970's highlife declined as a distinct musical style having been largely been absorbed into the larger Afro-pop and world beat guitar bands. Highlife's influence remains intact however, for as Ewens notes, "The highlife flavour has also been used to spice up other African dance musics from Afro-beat to soukous, makossa and mbalax."



All 15 songs on this record are lively, upbeat, expressions of joy and freedom. Perfect for a sunny afternoon at the beach or to chill out to at home, the music on Rough Guide to Highlife is infectiously rhythmic and lends itself well to dancing to or just listening to with friends. As previously mentioned, Graeme Ewens' sleeve notes are exceptionally well written and informative in describing this vibrant and influential music. Individual artists' bios are also featured and Ewens includes (where possible) the names of the albums that these songs originally appeared on. My favorites are Chief Stephen Osita Osidabe (Ka-Anyi Jikota), Jerry Hansen & the Ramblers Dance Band and George Darko. Splash into a unique musical experience with this superb record from the good folks at Rough Guide and pass the joy on!"