Peter Somuah

First press 2024.
The Highlife album is an ode to the Ghanaian tradition of highlife music and features the legends of the genre. Highlife has a unique sound with a distinctive finger-picking style of playing on the guitar, minimalistic yet groovy bass lines, percussive keyboard patterns, soulful melody lines by the brass section, and much emphasis on rhythm. The opening song of the album, We Give Thanks, features Pat Thomas, also known as “the golden voice of Africa”. Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, the first musician worldwide to incorporate rap into highlife music, appears on Chop chop. And 93-year old Koo Nimo, who was a leading highlife musician and the first Ghanaian to have their music be put on a CD, narrates some of the origins of the highlife genre.