Internationally acclaimed Ghanaian musician Kwame Yeboah has declared that highlife music is dead in Ghana, disputing claims that the genre still thrives through modern variations.
Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Hitz FM’s Daybreak Hitz, the multi-instrumentalist and producer said the genre, which originated in Ghana, no longer holds prominence in the country.
According to Yeboah, most younger artistes who claim to perform highlife rarely use live highlife instruments, relying heavily on computerised beats instead.
“Highlife music is dead in Ghana, right? Tell me, who is doing highlife in Ghana?” he asked.
He noted that bands such as Santrofi, which have remained true to highlife, rarely perform locally and are often on international tours, serving highlife to audiences abroad.
Explaining why he believes Kuami Eugene does not fully represent highlife, Yeboah said: “Well, Kuami Eugene is not a big expo because the music he does is computer based so it’s different. If you play Santrofi’s songs and you play Kuami Eugene’s songs you can hear what I mean. One of them is played with live instruments, one of them is played with computers.”
When asked whether a song ceases to be highlife once it involves technological simulations, Yeboah replied: “You can use computers to do highlife but then again is that AI music or what is that? What are we again? What do we have to show the world as Ghanaians? What do we have that the world will value? Computers are everywhere. What do we have? Is it our instruments that we have here?”
Yeboah, who grew up learning from highlife greats, stressed that regardless of fusions with other genres, an essential aspect of highlife that must be preserved is the live performance of its instruments.
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