The World Highlife Day Festival is a one-day music festival that is held all over the world. This year’s event will take place at the Goethe Institute in Accra on Friday, March 3, 2023.

Abiza and Santrofi Bands, who have elevated Ghanaian highlife to greater levels individually and jointly, will perform at the Goethe Institute.

The Santrofi Band is made up of musicians who play different instruments and who often change their arrangements both in the studio and on stage. They have shown a newfound musical freedom by studying music from different genres while keeping their highlife roots strong.

Highlife is a music genre that started in present-day Ghana in the 19th century, during its history as a colony of the British Empire, and through its trade routes in coastal areas. It describes multiple local fusions of African meter and western jazz melodies.

It uses the melodies and main rhythmic structures of traditional Akan music and Kpanlogo music of the Ga people, but is usually played with Western instruments. Highlife is known for its jazzy horns, multiple guitars that lead the band, and two-finger guitar plucking, which is common in African music. It has gotten a faster, more synth-driven sound in recent years.

Before World War II, “Native Blues,” a type of music that included highlife, was very popular but short-lived.

After the war, it became popular again among the Igbo people of Nigeria. They used their own traditional guitar riffs and the ideas of the Ghanaian highlife big band to create Igbo highlife, which was the most popular music in the country in the 1960s.

Highlife has remained a popular style of music for Ghanaians and their diaspora around the world because it is tied to religious institutions and has helped Ghanaians who left their home country to move to other countries.

Source – Tru News Report

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