HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF HIGHLIFE MUSIC IN GHANA

Introduction

Music is an important element of human culture, and every culture that exists in human history has a form of music. Culture is generally defined as a way of life of a group of people. Culture thus includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, moral, music, laws, custom and religion of a group of people living in a confined space
. Music is inseparable from Ghanaian culture. In Africa, music permeates in all aspect of life hence an African is born, named, initiated, fortified, nurtured, and buried with music. In Ghana, Highlife and Hiplife music are the two most contemporary music genres. Highlife music was developed in the late 19^th and early 20^th century and it later influenced a new genre which is known as Hiplife in the 20^th century.

Evolution of Highlife Music in Ghana

 The term “evolution” is defined as “the process by which a structural reorganization is effected through time, eventually producing a form or structure which is qualitatively different from the ancestral form.Ghanaian Highlife music has gradually evolved from a simpler form into a more complex one. Highlife as a Ghanaian music genre is believed to have been created in the late 19^th and early 20^th century from a fusion of three major musical elements namely: indigenous African music, European music and New World music from the Americas.

Highlife music developed from a fusion of military and regimental brass band music of the West African Frontier Forces and colonial administration; Jazz, Swing and other forms of popular music from America; Calypso, Samba Cha Cha Cha, Foxtrot, Meringue from the Caribbean and the West Indies; guitar music of Liberian Kru sailors, music of returning ex-slaves as well as music of ethnic groups in the Ghana and West African sub-region. Highlife music first grew as a sub-regional music in the then “British West Africa” before its articulation in specific West African nations, especially Ghana and Nigeria.

The Ghanaian elements in the Highlife music is made up of mostly Adowa  from the Asante,Agbadza dance from the Ewe, Fanti Osibisaaba, Dagomba guitar songs and the Ga Timo & Kpanlogo which grew up from Ga dance-band  and local drumming in the 1960s.The guitar two-finger plucking technique of Highlife was also borrowed from the Kru people of Liberia. These Kru people were sailors who sailed across the coast of West Africa: they used to travel the whole of the West African coast right down to the Congo both in their own canoes and as hired crew members on European and American trading vessels. They transported instruments such as the guitar and the concertina which met with the Ghanaian rhythms. Both guitar and concertina spread into the rural areas of Ghana in the form of  palm wine music. Often palm wine music was a trio consisting of guitar, percussion and vocals that performed at venues where palm wine or its distilled form known as Akpeteshi were sold and also offered for the musician's motivation. Kpanlogo was influenced by Oge, which is a Kru traditional music introduced into Ghana by Kru sailors and later became popular in the 1950s. The originator of this Kpanlogo is called Otoo Lincoln who is a Ga and according to him, the name Kpanlogo was an imaginary name of a girl. Kpanlogo was formally promulgated in the 1965 at the stadium in Black Star Square when Otoo and other Kpanlogo bands were invited to perform to some prominent people including Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

            One of the foreign elements which influenced the Highlife music is the piano music and hymns which were taught by the Christian missionaries and school teachers throughout Ghana’s colonial history, and it became popular with the educated African Christian elites in Ghana in the middle and late nineteenth century. However, the piano music and hymns influence on Ghana’s Highlife music is not much as compared to the local elements.

Another foreign element is the military band established by the colonial government of the British West Africa. In the 1870s to 1900s, the fife-and-drum and brass-band of West Indian Regiments began to make a notable musical impact on Anglophone West Africa, including Ghana, and acted as a catalyst in the formation of popular performance styles in Ghana. By the 1840s there were local indigenous band stationed at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana to play both martial and popular English tunes. In the early 1870s, West Indian Rifle Regiments which was made up of about six to seven thousand West Indians mainly from Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados  were brought to the castle to help fight in the Asante wars of 1873/1874 and 1900. And they would often play their syncopated Afro-Caribbean music such as Calypso which influenced young Fante brass band musicians and by the 1880s they combined the West Indian clave rhythms and their own West-African styles with the brass band music to form a music called Adaha.

In conclusion, the genesis of Highlife started from time immemorial when Ghanaians began to sing and dance on beats produced using various traditional musical instruments. By 20th century, ethnic music which includes Dagomba guitar songs, Kpanlogo, Adowa, Agbadza, Osibisaaba, Oge, Timo etc.  had already been developed by the various ethnic groups in Ghana. Ethnic music especially that of southern Ghana had West African influence from the Kru sailor who sailed across the coast of West Africa, including Ghana, in the 17^th century and introduced their instruments and music to the local people.Their music became popular in Ghana in the 1800s.

From the 1800s and as a result of European presence and colonialism, there was the introduction of foreign music to southern Ghana and sea-ports thus the regimental brass-band music of European and West Indian soldiers who were brought to help fight the Asantes in the 1873/1874 and 1900 wars, classical and ballroom music of western style dance orchestras, and the harmonies of Christian mission hymns introduced in the middle and late 19^th century.

            All these external and internal elements helped Highlife music to evolve into a kind of music Ghana has today. It is true that Highlife music certainly had non-African influences from outside the African continent but the music retained its traditional elements hence could be said to be indigenous and traditional to Ghanaians.

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