Highlife Music

Luke Barnes
Music History 1
4/21/2018

Highlife Music

Highlife music is always changing, going through style changes, instrument changes, and changes in the area of Africa that it is popular. Highlife music is also very hard to define in one sentence or to put it into one category. It can loosely be defined as Africa’s popular music and the soul of a lot of musicians in Africa. It is difficult to determine when highlife music started; Authors of Highlife music hypothesize it being originated anywhere between 75 years ago, to even a century ago. We also do not know exactly where it originated. ”Did it come from Nigeria? Ghana? Sierra Leone? Did it sprout spontaneously in various points across the West African coast? Or did it arrive there
from further beyond, over the Atlantic, somewhere in the Caribbean?” (Ikonne). Ghana, in West Africa, is credited with being the place of origin of Highlife music. “The name highlife is believed to have arose as a reflection of the more glamourous profile given to the music by the high-society orchestras that played at formal dances organized by the emerging Ghanaian elite” (Ikonne). Highlife music is not a constant type of music; it goes through many transformations adding instruments and textures to the music, and being replaced by other genres of music from different parts of the country.
Highlife music seems to be closely related to what we know as jazz music.
This genre of music was known for using expensive brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpets and saxophones. Just as modern day jazz music uses trumpets, trombones, saxophones, drum set, and rhythm section etc. highlife music uses similar instrumentation set up. Highlife music also incorporates guitars and vocalists much like a jazz band. One type of instrument that a typical jazz band might not that highlife music bands have are Latin type instruments. Even though typical jazz bands perform Latin charts, Latin music is not the sole characteristic of a modern jazz band. In contrast, the majority of highlife music is characterized by Latin music and
instruments. Some influential people in highlife music include: Rex Jim Lawson, born in 1937 and lived until 1971, led a band that was celebrated the most of some other band leaders for incorporating a distinctive Nigerian feeling to highlife music. Lawson used many different rhythms Niger Delta region, which is where he is from. Nigeria earned its independence in 1960 and also claimed highlife music to be the national music of Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, Mensah’s music was widely enjoyed, but the dance tempo and style band concept never got rooted locally. In Sierra Leone, the main style of music that was popular/prevalent was the old palm-wine guitar band style, it remained dominant over the Tempos-style dance band concept. During the Civil war of 1967, highlife music’s status of being the national music torpedoed. The country was split along ethnic and political lines, and most of the highlife musicians fled from the eastern region of the country because they were attempting to secede from the union. As they left the then-national capital of Lagos to return to where they came from, the type of music to fill the place of highlife music was a Yoruba-centric juju style. Highlife would never again be the universally beloved but highlife music was still loved in the eastern and Midwestern part of the country. Another very important person in the world of highlife music is Stephen Osita Osadebe.
Stephen Osita Osadebe, an Igbo Nigerian highlife musician from Atani. His career spanned over 40 years, and he is one of the best known Igbo highlife musicians and lived from 1936-2007, and Celestine Ukwu, a very popular highlife musician who lived from 1940-1977, transformed the dance band tradition by drawing increasingly from Igbo folklore and toning down the brassy bombast with languid, low-simmering Afro-Cuban rhythms. (Ikonne).
Cuban music had become very popular with many people, including Victor Uwaifo, a Nigerian musician, writer, sculptor, and musical instrument inventor. He also served as commissioner for arts and culture in Edo State under the government of Lucky Igbinedion, who drew from a lot form Cuban music and from the folklore of his native Edo land and also took ideas from rock’n roll to create his own version of highlife music that was called akwassa.
The Igbo ensemble known as the ‘Oriental Brothers’ decided to leave the traditional or institutional band and the stress on horn sections and began using a new band model that emphasized flashy guitar. The high energy electric guitar solos, which are from soukous music and rumba music, influenced the ensemble to do this. This new style of guitar emphasized music was also well liked in Ghana. The old dance band style had lost popularity to imported styles such as soul and reggae music. New popular musicians and bands had come up during this time. Some artists include the African Brothers, K. Gyasi’s Noble Kings, Alex Konadu’s Band, and the City Boys. But in the end, the political and economic instability of the 1980’s brought highlife’s contemporary cultural currency to a stop. Highlife music took a shift to focus on heavy guitar.
The more guitar focused/heavy version of highlife music can be seen in rock’n roll in the USA. This version of highlife music emphasized more on guitar solos and a more what we know as heavy metal sound with the guitars. This is not the only idea that highlife music brought to America or any country, highlife music has been influenced many types of music. Even though highlife music has gone down in popularity a lot, the flame for this style of music will never be snuffed out completely. In highlife music’s most popular times, it prided itself as the basis of all musical language bridges of Anglophone West Africa. The melodic and rhythmic concepts of highlife music is the DNA that has continued to animate a variety of regional sounds that have arose in the years since the prime of highlife music. Nigeria has countless types of music and all of them borrow something from highlife music. There were many highlife music advocators and musicians during the prime of this style. Even today, Victor Olaiya, is actively keeping highlife music alive and well in Nigeria. Highlife music may not be the most popular music out there and it may not have the most followers of any type of music, but highlife music definitely is a special type of
music.
We see people today who listen to music just as background noise or just listen to it because it has a cool rhythm, but something I believe is that we as musicians can learn the most from highlife musicians. Aside from “just listening”, musicians should put out whole heart and soul into their music. Highlife music is what a lot what people during this time lived for. It was the only way that they could express themselves and show people what they are passionate for. At the time that highlife music was popular, people did not have social media or internet for entertainment. All they had was music, and that is what they dedicated their life too. I believe that we need to care more about our musical products and show that we really do care about our music. I believe that todays “popular music” has a lot less heart in it and a lot more of “what keeps the listener entertained” and “what is catchy so that the listener will sing it after they hear the song”. These are not bad things, but I believe that we should not focus on these things first but instead, focus on what we put in the music and how we can put ourselves and our personality into the music.

Works Cited

Bibliography
Ikonne, Uchenna. Music in Africa. 24 November 2014.
Oti, Sonny. Highlife Music in Africa. Malthouse Press Limited, 2009.