Highlife
Perhaps the earliest successful popular music style emanating from West Africa is highlife. During the 1920s, highlife was essentially brass-band dance music for the social elites in British-occupied Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast. Performing waltzes, polkas, and other popular European dance music of the day for exclusive social events, the working-class populations came to consider the music as exclusive to those people “living the high life.” Though the instrumentation duplicated that of European ballroom dance, some local musicians composed new music based on familiar folk melodies. After World War II, Ghana’s political climate changed as the country moved toward independence from British rule, which it won in 1957. Local traditions became increasingly influential on the dance-band repertoire, as did international genres, especially calypso, which had a similar historical evolution as dance-band music with a local flavor. American jazz, which then dominated the popular music landscape worldwide, expanded the audience for highlife bands as they incorporated jazz elements into their performances. During the 1950s, the optimistic attitude of the population toward the country’s anticipated independence was reflected in the regular inclusion of indigenous rhythms, often played on traditional instruments, and lyrical content that addressed the changing political atmosphere.