• Highlife Music – Slides from a presentation by Alisdair MacRae-Birch covering the history, instruments, and subgenres of the style, as well as highlife music in the United Kingdom.
  • Highlife Soundzone – Includes articles, reviews, audio samples, music awards, radio station, and chat room.
  • TAP: Highlife Music – Overview of the style and links.

Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana and Sierra Leone in the 1920’s and spread to other West African countries. It is characterized by jazzy horns and multiple guitars which lead the band. Recently, it has acquired an uptempo, synth-driven sound (cf. Daddy Lumba).

Saka Acquaye and His African Ensemble are featured on Nonesuch Explorer Series album Ghana: High-Life & Other Popular Music (Voices of Africa: High-Life and Other Popular Music 1969/2002). Other artists include:

S. E. Rogie
Koola Lobitos
The African Brothers Band
A.B. Crentsil
George Darko
Solomon Ilori
Rex Lawson
Prince Nico Mbarga
E.T. Mensah
Osibisa
The Sweet Talks
The Tempos
Pat Thomas
Daddy Lumba

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