Background: Highlife

Topic: Dance Music - Highlife
Jamaican music reached West Africa early. When freedmen rebelled against their administrative overseers in Sierra Leone in 1800, Britain brought captured Maroon runaways [1] from Jamaica to instill order in Freetown. [2] John Collins suggested they carried knowledge of their gumbay frame drums with them. [3]

The rebels were slaves who had defected to the British during the American Revolutions and were settled as freedmen in Nova Scotia after the war. They had volunteered to escape the cold north for Freetown. [4] In South Carolina, the men who accepted the British offer of freedom were used as soldiers. [5] After the war, they were moved to Jamaica with other troops. [6] The whites were demobilized and given land grants. The Blacks presented a problem, because no planter on any island wanted them. They finally were stationed in the Leeward Islands in 1783. [7]

Over time the West India Regiment was recognized as a usable resource for the same reason slaves from Africa were useful. Tropical diseases like yellow fever, malaria, and cholera led to early deaths among Europeans. The unit was regularized in 1795, during the Napoleonic wars, and its numbers were supplemented with slaves purchased by the army, as they had been during the revolution. [8]

The United Kingdom banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. [9] The next year, it stationed part of its navy in Freetown to enforce the law. Freetown had a large, natural harbor [10] where seamen from many nations mixed with local dock workers in waterfront bars. [11] When British ships returned to port, they released their cargoes of captives in Sierra Leone, [12] which added to cosmopolitan nature of the Crown colony. Shipboard instruments like mandolins, banjos, harmonicas, and concertinas were introduced. Kru sailors spread the guitar from Liberia to every African port where their ships stopped. [13]

The West India regiment was sent to Freetown for the first time in 1826 to recruit new soldiers. [14] Alfred Burdon Ellis said the regiment was always undermanned, so garrisons might only have a few regular troops supplemented by clerks, guards, and other civilians. [15] They were constantly on the move, and recruited men wherever they were stationed. In 1839, there were companies in Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, and on the northeastern coast of South America. [16]

Palm oil replaced slaves as a trade commodity. It was used as a lubricant, especially by railroads in England. [17] The trade, which depended on contacts with inland producers, gave local merchants and private trading companies an advantage over ones sponsored by the Crown. [18] In 1843, the United Kingdom sent troops from Sierra Leone to help take control of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. Britain’s rationale was local merchants were perpetuating the slave trade. [19]

From then until the regiment was disbanded after World War I, West India companies periodically were sent to the British garrison at Cape Coast Castle, then withdrawn. With the garrison came the spread of fife and drum corps, and then, as suggested in the post for 15 September 2017, brass bands. One was mentioned at Cape Coast Castle in 1830. [20] Collins said there were 200 forts or trading posts [21] along the Gold Coast, and many recruited and trained local musicians. [22]

Musicians who could not afford brass instruments created their own versions of band music with local instruments that replaced the downbeats used by the military with the offbeats of Caribbean music. [23] Collins said they maintained the drill formations for adaha music. [24] Since 1858, the dress uniform of the West India regiment had been modeled on that of the French North African Zouaves. [25]

Wesleyan missionaries followed the army to the coastal settlements on the Gold Coast where they opened schools. [26] Most of the men they educated became merchants. By 1885, they had become a separate class [27] who held its own social functions modeled on the European ones.

The status of the new elite changed in the 1890s. Once scientists identified mosquitoes as the carriers of yellow fever and malaria, colonial administrators began eliminating swamps. The improved sanitation made the climate less deadly for Europeans, and more were willing to spend part of their youth in Africa. [28]

The new men were raised with increasingly prevalent theories promoting a hierarchy of races that placed whites at the top and Negroes at the bottom. Unlike their predecessors, the new company agents were unwilling to work with Africans and established white-only enclaves. [29] Colonial administrators began systematically discouraging the use of educated Africans in their own offices. [30]

Meantime, cocoa was replacing palm oil as the primary product in the southern part of the Gold Coast. Farmers moved there from neighboring Upper Volta, Niger, and Mali [31] to escape French attempts to introduce coerced labor. [32] The Mossi became farm workers. More men moved during World War I to avoid conscription. [33] Many of those went to urban areas where the educated assumed new roles. [34]

The fortunes of the educated African elite changed again during the war. Germans had been customers for many export products, and sales fell when the war started. [35] When demand increased for materials useful to the military, there were few who could do the purchasing after so many British agents also left. [36] Africans with some "education were able to interpose themselves as middlemen between the primary producers and the big European commercial companies." [37]

After the war those with money held dances in local hotels. Yebuah Mensah remembered

"The term ‘highlife’ was created by people who gathered around the dancing clubs to watch and listen to the couples enjoying themselves. Highlife started as a catch-name for the indigenous songs played at these clubs by such early bands as the Jazz Kings, the Cape Coast Sugar Babies, the Sekondi Nanshamang, and later the Accra Orchestra.

"The people outside called it highlife as they did not reach the class of the couples going inside, who not only had to pay high entrance fee of 7s. 6d., but also had to wear full evening dress including top hats." [38]

The term highlife became elastic when it was used to refer to African dance music of the elite, the urban poor, and cocoa farmers.

Merchants began selling phonograph machines. While some manufactures established their own outlets, the German Odeon signed exclusive distribution contracts with local merchants. It offered to send equipment to record local artists as a way of producing records that would generate more equipment sales. Other companies followed their example, while Zonophone decided it was cheaper to take artists by steamship to London. [39]

In 1928, the owners of the Tarquah Trading Company in Kumasi sent local Gold Coast musicians to England. [40] One was Kwame Asare. He had been raised in the south where he learned to play guitar from a Kru. [41] When his father objected to the instrument, he moved to Kumasi. [42] It was the northern railhead for the cocoa farms. [43]

The movements of people within the booming 1920s economy of cocoa country created the kind of cross-fertilization that leads to the creation of new music forms like hip hop in the Bronx [44] and Black gospel music in England. [45] Asare, using the name Jacob Sam, recorded what became "the prototype for a new genre" [46] of working class highlife or palm-wine music.

Sam used wooden sticks to set the rhythm pattern for his recording of "Yaa Amponsah." [47] According to William Matczynski, they were played after the second, third, and fourth beats. He noted this pattern occurred "in almost every 4/4 highlife song" after that. [48]

The acoustic guitars played the same pattern in a phrase that was repeated for the entire record. [49] While the guitars and claves created a simple accompaniment for the singer, Matczynski observed the guitarists played a series of chords that defined the descending melody. Again "Yaa Amponsah" chord progressions were shared by many songs. [50]

Highlife lyrics were meant to be heard, and often carried coded political messages in languages only partly understood by their colonial targets. [51] "Yaa Amponsah" described a woman who taught men to dance with women in the western style. Sam told her he would continue to love her, even though she was leaving. It upset both the traditional elite and the one trained by Methodists and Episcopalians who believed men and women ought to dance separately. [52]

During the dislocations of the depression, men took Ghanaian music to Nigeria. [53] Then, in 1934, the Cape Coast Sugar Babies Light Orchestra toured Nigeria. [54] The Yoruba substituted their "asymmetrical drum rhythms" with "syncopated (displaced-accent) guitar melodies" [55] to create juju music. [56]

The second World War brought more changes. The Gold Coast was the designated place of exile if one were needed by the British government. [57] British and American troops wanted to hear swing music at their dances. Jack Leopard recruited local musicians who could read music. [58] E. T. Mensah remembered the saxophone player "taught us the correct methods of intonation, vibrato, tonguing and breath control." [59]

After the troops withdrew at war’s end, Mensah formed his own group, the Tempos, who played swing-influenced highlife. They toured Nigeria in 1952. "Nigerian radio stations started playing nothing but E.T. Mensah records and Nigerian bands had to start playing Mensah’s numbers to satisfy the dancing public’s boundless appetite for the new Ghanaian sound." The first to imitate him was Bobby Benson. Then Victor Olaiya "started filling his entire sets with nothing but songs by Mensah." [60]

Victor Uwaifo was twelve-years old when Mensah peformed in the Edo city of Benin. [61] He already was interested in music, and spent a little time with the Tempos’ guitarist. [62] Uwaifo’s taste had been formed by his father’s phonograph records. He told Morgan Greenstreet:

"As early as 12 years old, way back in Benin here, I started playing guitar, based on Latin-American Spanish type of music. I grew up in an era where the gramophone was the in thing. Gramophone is a kind of device that you just wind and you release it and it starts playing. I still have one there that I will demonstrate; if you had a gramophone, you are a big man. You had a gas light to go with it, oh, you are extra big! So if the gramophone was playing in my house, my father had many types of records but especially when he played the GV records, those were the ones that appealed to me because they were mostly guitar." [63]

During the depression the English Victor company had begun sending recordings by Cuban and other Latin performers like Xavier Cugat to Africa. [64]

Highlife continued to evolve. In 1956, Louis Armstrong visited Ghana, and played trumpet with Mensah’s band. That same year Harry Belafonte recorded the "Banana Boat Song," and some highlife artists began incorporating his Jamaican rhythms into their music. [65]

When Uwaifo was in secondary school in Lagos between 1957 and 1961, [66] he studied music and formed the school band. He also played with both Benson and Olayia on weekends. [67] Uwaifo remembered it was in those years that musical taste changed again when Elvis Presley’s guitar-based backup group began replacing the brasses used by the highlife bands. [68]

In 1965, Uwaifo formed his own band, the Melody Maestroes [69] and released "Joromi." [70] They returned to the guitar-based highlife of Jacob Sam, but with electric guitars and drummers. The text incorporated elements of Edo folklore.

Nigeria had gained its freedom from the United Kingdom in 1960, and in 1966 the Igbo overthrew the government. [71] When the Biafran civil war began in 1967, may Igbo fled Lagos. They were the primary highlife musicians in the capital city, and Yoruba juju filled the void. [72] Uwaifo remembered his fans turned to soul music. [73]

Peace officially returned in January 1970. [74] Soon after, Uwaifo abandoned the capital for Benin City, [75] where he opened a hotel [76] and nightclub in 1971. [77] His new records used Edo rhythms and generic titles, [78] like "Ekassa 1." [79]

Uwaifo’s recording of "Guitar Boy" [80] was turned to political ends in Ghana in 1966, when a group of dissidents arranged to have the record played on national radio as the signal a coup had begun. [81] After Jerry Rawlings seized control of the government in 1981, [82] he imposed curfews that limited nighttime activities. The "live music scene was virtually wiped out and the music industry as a whole was severely damaged. John Collins describes this period as absolutely devastating. " [83]

End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone." Maroons were slaves who escaped plantations and established remote communities on the island. After conflict in 1792, one white broke the peace agreement and shipped Maroons to Nova Scotia, then, in 1800, to Sierra Leone.

2. Wikipedia. "Freetown."

3. John Collins. "The Early History of West African Highlife Music." Popular Music 8:221-230:1989. 221.

4. Wikipedia, Freetown.

5. A. B. Ellis. The History of the First West India Regiment. London: Chapman and Hall, 1885. 27. Ellis was an English officer in the regiment, rising from lieutenant in 1873 to lieutenant-colonel in 1891. (Charles Alexander Harris. "Ellis, Alfred Burdon." 182-183 in Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephan. London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1901 supplement.)

6. Ellis. 49.
7. Ellis. 51.

8. "Slaves in Red Coats: The West India Regiment." National Army Museum, London, website.

9. National Army Museum. The status of slaves in the West India Regiment was changed to that of their free peers.

10. Wikipedia, Freetown.
11. Collins, Highlife. 222.
12. Wikipedia, Freetown.
13. Collins, Highlife. 222.
14. Ellis. 178.
15. Ellis. 24.
16. Ellis. 209.

17. S. O. Aghalino. "British Colonial Policies and the Oil Palm Industry in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, 1900-1960" African Study Monographs, 21:19-33:2000. 19.

18. I. Wallerstein. "Africa and the World-Economy. 23-39 in Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s. Edited by J. F. Ade Ajayi. Paris: UNESCO, 1989. 31.

19. Ellis. 212.

20. Atta Mensah. "Highlife." 8:550-551 in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980. 550.

21. The term fort was used by mercantile companies for their trading posts; the ones for the fur trade in the United States and Canada often were built like military forts.

22. Collins, Highlife. 223.
23. Collins, Highlife. 223.
24. Collins, Highlife. 224.
25. National Army Museum.

26. A. A. Boahen. "New Trends and Processes in Africa in the Nineteenth Century." 40-63 in Ajayi. 46. Wesleyans were the English Methodists.

27. Boahen, Trends. 51.

28. J. C. Caldwell. "The Social Repercussions of Colonial Rule: Demographic Aspects." 458-486 in Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935. Edited by A. Adu Boahen. Paris: UNESCO, 1985. 478.

29. A. E. Afigbo. "The Social Repercussions of Colonial Rule: the New Social Structures." 487-507 in Boahen, Colonial. 495.

30. R. F. Betts. "Methods and Institutions of European Domination." Revised by M. Asiwaju. 312-331 in Boahen, Colonial. 316.

31. Shashi Kolavalli and Marcella Vigneri. "Cocoa in Ghana: Shaping the Success of an Economy." 201-217 in Yes, Africa Can. Edited by Punam Chuhan-Pole and Manka Angwafo. Washington: World Bank, 2011. 202.

32. C. Coquery-Vidrovitch. "The Colonial Economy of the Former French, Belgian and Portuguese Zones, 1914-35." 351-381 in Boahen, Colonial. 364

33. M . Crowder. "The First World War and its Consequences." 283-311 in Boahen, Colonial. 299.

34. Afigbo. 496.
35. Crowder. 300.
36. Crowder. 302.
37. Afigbo. 498.

38. Yebuah Mensah. Quoted by Uchenna Ikonne. "Highlife in West Africa." Music in Africa website.

39. Paul Vernon. "Special Agents: The Role of Local Agents In Early Recording." Bolingo website.

40. John Collins. "One Hundred Years of Censorship in Ghanaian Popular Music Performance." In Popular Music Censorship in Africa. Edited by Michael Drewett and Martin Cloonan. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. No pages in online edition.

41. Collins, Highlife. 223.
42. Kwaa Mensah. Quoted by Collins, Highlife. 223.

43. Kwamina B. Dickson. A Historical Geography of Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. 225.

44. The Bronx was mentioned in the post for 3 April 2018. After the changes in the immigration law mentioned in the post for 22 April 2018, people from all the former British Caribbean nations headed for the United States, where they congregated in ethnically-mixed neighborhoods.

45. The Escoffery Sisters pioneered Black gospel music in England. In 1959, before the restrictive immigration law went into effect in the United Kingdom, their father migrated to London from Jamaica. Arthur Torrington remembered the Seventh-day Adventist church the girls attended "was a melting pot of almost every nationality – British, European, African, Mauritian and Caribbean – and it was the first time that such a mix had taken place in its history. That decade saw the Caribbean membership in the UK becoming the majority, and the search for a pastor who reflected it." Obituary for their father. "George Stephenson Escoffery – d. 15 March 2010." [Seventh-day Adventist] Messenger 15:28 May 2010. The sisters were mentioned in the post for 14 March 2018.

46. Ikonne.

47. "Amponsah Part 1 & 2." Kingsway Hall, London. 8 June 1928. Zonophone 1001. (Flemming Harrev. "Zonophone." Afro Disc website. 14 August 2014, latest update 07 April 2015.) The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.

48. William Matczynski. "Highlife and its Roots: Negotiating the Social, Cultural, and Musical Continuities Between Popular and Traditional Music in Ghana." Honors Paper. Macalester College, 3 May 2011. 22. Ethnomusicologists refer to sticks by their Cuban name, clave or claves.

49. Matczynski. 22. Musicologists call this repetition ostinato.
50. Matczynski. 24-25.

51. Kwesi Owusu. "The Political Significance of Highlife Songs." Accra Dot Alt Radio website. April 2015.

52. Collins, Censorship.
53. Collins, Highlife. 224.
54. Mensah, Atta. 550.
55. "Highlife." Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 May 2016.
56. Collins, Highlife. 224.
57. Collins, Highlife. 225.
58. Collins, Highlife. 225.
59. E. T. Mensah [Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah]. Quoted by Collins, Highlife. 224.
60. Ikonne.

61. Ikonne. Benin City was in southwestern Nigeria. It had been the capitol of the Edo people.

62. John Collins. Musicmakers of West Africa. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1985. 77. The guitarist was Dizzy Acquaye.

63. Victor Uwaifo. Quoted by Morgan Greenstreet. "Sir Victor Uwaifo, Superstar: In His Own Words." Afro Pop website. 20 March 2017.

64. Wikipedia. "G.V. Series." The company was British EMI and the label was His Master’s Voice. In the 1940s, it expanded to include RCA Victor in the United States.

65. Kwesi Owusu. "The Highlife Revolution Part 1." Accra Dot Alt Radio website. April 2015.

66. "Biography." Victor Uwaifo website.
67. "Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Melody Maestros." Munster Records website.
68. Collins, Musicmakers. 77.
69. Collins, Musicmakers. 73.

70. Sir Victor Uwaifo and his Melody Maestroes. "Joromi." Philips PF 383045. Nigeria. 1965. (His website). The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.

71. Wikipedia. "Nigeria."
72. Ikonne. Also, Karas Lamb. "Highlife Music." Revive Music website. 22 June 2011.
73. Greenstreet.
74. Wikipedia, Nigeria.
75. Collins, Musicmakers. 72.
76. "Biography." Victor Uwaifo website.
77. Greenstreet.
78. Greenstreet.

79. Sir Victor Uwaifo & his Melody Maestroes. "Dododo Ekassa No. 1" Philips PF 6043312. Nigeria. 1970. (His website.) The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.

80. Sir Victor Uwaifo & his Melody Maestroes. "Guitar Boy & Mamywater." Philips PF 383245. Nigeria. 1966. (His website). The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.

81. Owusu, Political Significance.
82. Wikipedia. "Jerry Rawlings."
83. Matczynski. 15. He did not give a specific citation for Collins.