Highlife Music originated from Nigeria🇳🇬 or from GHANA 🇬🇭? | Convos with Prof. John Collins PART 1

All right. Should I start? Yeah.

>> Are you rolling?

>> Okay.

[Music]

My name is John Collins. Um,

I'm been in Ghana since 1969 as an

adult, but I was here as a child as

well. Um, and I've been involved in the

Ghanaian and West African music scene

since the 1960s or 1970s. Played with

many bands. Ran a recording studio in

this very house where we're sitting now,

Bour House. Um, been teaching at Legon

in the music department for 26 years.

Became a professor there. And also for

the last 30 years I've been running a

high life museum

or institute in the same premises um

boore house. Um so I I've been really

involved in the music industry for a

long time but I didn't come to Ghana

purposely to go back to my roots or

discover African music cuz I came here

as a kid with my parents. So I I I was I

was raised actually in Achimoto when I

was a small boy for a while. When I came

to Ghana um I joined a concert party

called the Jaguar Jokers. They were

staying at my stepmother. My father

married after divorcing my mother, my

English mother. Then he married a

Ghanaian lady called Auntie Amma um a

Nachim lady. So I met my first band

through her because in her house one of

the tenants was the leader of the Jaguar

Jokers called Opia and I was always in

those days I always held a guitar. So

they I I they hijacked me in 1969 and

took me on a village tour with the

Jaguar Jokers. So I was playing the

guitar uh but not acting just just the

trying to learn to play high life and

then in the night we sleep on the floor

and move to another village. So that's

how I first met Ghana in music and I

found it wonderful. And then I went to

Laggon to study a degree in sociology

and archaeology. So my and I even taught

chemistry and physics in Ghana in

Kofidawa and at GIS in Ghana in Ara. So

I had a very varied background. I so I

can't say anything brought me to Ghana.

Most certainly I didn't expect to end up

by being a professor of music and an

expert on high life or anything like

this.

We call it encrabia.

Yes. Was largely a product of the

fantasies, the aans and the gar to a

lesser extent the eve and it took their

indigenous music and combined it with

western ideas because it was colonial

times. We're talking during the colonial

system. So they borrowed the harmonies,

the some of the instruments, the brass

bands, the guitars and so on, trumpets

from the Europeans. And the missionaries

introduced western harmonies. So there

was a western influence in high life. So

it's the can say the bedrock was African

uh in Ghana particularly the fanties the

cans and the gas and then the western

elements coming outside being fused with

it. It's a fusion music. But then also

very important in the birth of high life

was the influence of the black Americans

and black west Indians. And right from

the very beginning there was a west

influence in Ghana coming into an early

form of high life cuz the word high life

wasn't invented till the 1920s.

But we had we had styles of music which

predate high life. One was called Adaha

music from the Fanties and the other was

called Osubisa also from the Fanties. Um

so um but um and the Adahar music in

particular that that's the brass band

variety of high life was influenced by

West Indian soldiers who brought

AfroCaribbean music

and later on J Highife itself was

influenced by jazz. So you can see that

I would say that High Life was born in

Ghana, has got some pan West African

roots to it, connections, and is a

combination of the African baseline, the

roots if you want to put it that way,

Western imports and also a big influence

from the black Americas, both United

States and the Caribbean. That's why we

call high life a fusion music. It's

combination of the African, the western,

and the black Americas. But born in

Ghana, born in West Africa. Yeah, I was

very lucky. You know, I wrote a book

about ET Mensah back in the 70s. And

when I was writing the book, ET took me

to the older musicians, that is the ones

that came before ET, like his older

brother, Yemen, Squire, Adu, Frank

Torto. These guys go back to the 1920s.

So, this is where I got the information

from. And it was It Mensah's older

brother Yebormens who was running the

Acra rhythmic orchestra back in the

1930s who told me about the origin of

the word high life. Um and he said what

happened is that even though there were

different forms of high life by that

time played by soldiers, played by

sailors, poor people, the ballroom

orchestras of the rich Ghanaian also

started to occasionally play some of

these what we might call street music.

Um and at first, you know, the the

ballroom orchestras didn't play any

African music at all. You could say that

they were affected by the colonial

mentality. They played imported walses,

fox trucks, ragtime and so on. But

somewhere at some point and an elderly

lady told me this actually who saw this

when she was a small girl that the

highlight or it was for the rich people.

So they had these dancing clubs and

they'd be playing their walses and fox

trots with people you know dancing

together in couples uh wearing very fine

clothes but occasionally they wanted to

let their hair down. So they would pick

a a typical street music, what might

have been called osabisaba or adaha

music and then they would do what they

call a ring dance or a conga line. You

know the conga line where the people

dance between around each other in

lines. They would let their hair down.

So so what happened is some of the

street music was began to be

orchestrated by the highass

elite ballroom dance orchestras. But the

people who coined the name highclass

life music or high life music were not

the highass people or the highass

musicians. It was the poor people who

gathered outside the dancing clubs. You

see in those days there was a lot of

class. It's British you know British

class system. We have a system with the

queen at the top and people at the

bottom and so on. So it was very class

conscious. It depended on what you wore.

So the poor people didn't have money in

their pockets or the clothes to wear to

get into the elite dance clubs. Um and

suddenly they they notice but they used

to enjoy on the pavements outside. Maybe

they take their wives or girlfriends the

men take some Kelly well and some apotes

or something you know not expensive

enjoy themselves do the ballroom dancing

on the streets outside of places like

the palladium cinema for instance or

there were many clubs like this in in

Ghana at that time for the rich. Um and

then of course suddenly they heard their

own music coming out and they didn't

have a name for it. So they they called

it high life music, highclass life

music. But it didn't mean that the

elites invented high life. It had

already been in Ghana for at least 30 40

years before that under different names.

Even in Nigeria they had something like

high life. They called it native blues.

So that was all around West Africa,

these preh highife forms of music. But

the name itself got coined in Ghana in

the 1920s by the poor people according

to Yabua Mensah. It's there somewhere in

my book but maybe not said in that

particular way. I've even got a picture

in the book of the first reference to

High Life which was

they had an orchestra called the Raga

Jaspo Orchestra and it played in 1925

for the Cape Coast Literary Association

that included really I mean if you look

at the names of the patrons it it um uh

President Nana Ado's grandfather was

there I think and also um Casey Hayford

Sir Quesley Hayford the founder of one

of the founders of pan-Africanism. So

all the big big names were there and it

gives the list of the the dances that

were going to be played and it mentions

the name highife and it's the first

evidence in the whole of West Africa to

the name high life. So it's 1925 Cape

Coast

um and it was the Cape Coast Literary

Association. So the name was invented or

maybe invented in Cape Coast we can say.

We're not sure but either there or Cra

because there were also orchestras in

Ara operating as well at the same time.

Yeah. that came from that came from the

the Ghanaians who had been trained by

the British in the colonial army and

then they hijacked British marching band

music and Africanized it with the help

of West Indians cuz the West Indians

were also I think we had about between

nobody knows the number between 6 and

8,000 West Indian soldiers stationed at

Cape Coast and Elmina for the Ashanti

war. So they also brought in Afro

Caribbean music. So that went into the

mix and then of course once the

Ghanaians had start realized you can

play AfroCaribbean music as well as

western music with brass bands it was

only a short distance to say well why

not use our own own rhythms and that's

how Adah was born

>> that that came more from the fisher folk

and what happened is that the crew

sailors had developed this African way

of playing the guitar which uses an

African plucking technique. technique

which is different from the Spanish

western technique and they spread it all

down the west African coast where you

know sailors go everywhere and in

various countries it it it it sort of

went into various forms of early popular

music. For instance in Sierra Leone they

had maringa music. So it uses the crew

style of guitar picking. In Nigeria they

had juju music and native blues which

uses the crew style of of uh finger

picking for the guitar. And in Ghana,

the fanties picked it up, the Fanty

fishermen or in the coastal areas like

Cape Coast and they developed it into

what we call the Osabisa.

And the earliest group that we know of

was the um or people involved in this

was um a guy called George William Eno

and also um Quiasari or Jacob Sam who

were the first to record around about

1928 late 20s. they recorded some of

this osabisa music. So this was probably

before the word highlight had become

very popularized in Ghana. You see so

this and so this is how what osubis in

fact um the umwami krummer tried to get

the name

uh highlight changed in 19 around about

1960 he asked all the musicians in the

country or the important ones to come to

the arts council arts center and because

he was indigenizing in Ghana so he

wanted to get rid of the colonial name

high life but I think that

um

didn't realize that The name was

actually invented by poor Ghanaians. But

anyway, he wanted to change it and he

picked the name Osabisa

because that was the old fancy name for

high life. And in fact, there was a

meeting and a vote and it I think that

according to ET Mensah, people did vote

to change the thing, but except Etsens

voted against it because he had been

claimed the king of high life, not the

king of Osisa. And moreover, by this

time, High Life had gone to Nigeria, had

taken firm root in Nigeria and some

other West African countries. So it was

too late to change the name. So we're

stuck with the name.

Well, that would be one of the ballroom

dance orchestras. We had about 20 bands

in uh some in Kamasi, some in Ara, some

Winnaba. I think even there was some in

Kofidawa and so on. The Cape Co Sugar

Babies is I can't remember. I think it

was formed around about 1930. I think

there was several bands in Cape Coast.

In fact, um there was one I think called

was it Dr. Graves Orchestra or

something, but the Cape Coast Sugar

Babies was the most famous for two

several reasons. One, it was the first

of the ballroom dance orchestras to

record highlights. So I've actually got

highlights in my museum uh recorded by

them under the name Cape Co Cape Co

sugar Sugar Babies or Cape Co Flower

Babies and these are very early highs

and as I said these orchestras didn't

really concentrate on high life back in

those days but then the other reason

they became famous is that they were the

ones who took high life first to

Nigeria. They went on a very extended

tour of Nigeria in 1937-38 over the

Christmas I think they went all over

caro everywhere and if when I went to

Nigeria some years ago the first

quotations about high life in Nigeria um

which professor Tundi Vital showed me

was a newspaper cutting from 1938 of the

Cape Co sugar babies introducing or

playing high life in Nigeria. So this is

this made that the Cape Co sugar babes

quite important. Um mo most people think

that it was ETmens who took high life to

Nigeria and that's true that the the

main introduction of high life was by

Etmens in the 50s but Ghanaian were

already going to Nigeria as early as the

late 1930s and it was the Cape Co sugar

babies that was the first to do and they

went on I think various West African

tours. So they became more famous I

would say at least in West Africa than

many of the other groups. You see the

dance bands came out of the elite

ballroom dance orchestras. For instance

ET Mensah the king of dance band Highife

got his training in the Accra orchestra

teacher lampra orchestra and his own

brother's rhythmic orchestra acythmic

orchestra. So the dance bands have a

very have an origin within the elite

bands although ETmen Mensah wasn't a

member of the elite that was the origin

and the people who were operating in the

dance bands like Broadwayu

the black beats of course starting with

ET Men's tempos could read music um some

of them had training in the ballroom

dance orchestras um and they stayed in a

cry or they they played in urban areas

when they travel they will go to say

kamasi or takarati but the guitar bands

have a completely different origin

totally as diff different different as I

don't know oil and water because the

guitar bands came from the fisherman the

poor folk um and it started as a what we

call the palm wine style the osabisa

osabisaba style um is sometimes called

the palm wine style because it it moved

from Cape Coast into the villages is

where people drink palm wine. And so it

the the the guitar bands were always

associated with the urban poor and the

rural people. Um and they were what we

would call illiterate in terms of

western formal education or music

education. So the it was it was a

completely different style. In fact,

there are stylistic differences. the the

guitar bands actually have more African

features in their music than do the

dance bands. They they use the modal

system of playing. They will use um the

recitative that is the proverbial way of

singing not in verses like European

music or dance highlights. So there were

quite substantial differences but the

main thing is that there was two classes

of high life musician who never met they

never interacted with and they didn't

even like each other just to prove the

point when Enrummer encouraged the form

for formation of a music union in Ghana

in the late 50s and early 60s two music

unions sprang up. one for the more uh

urban dance bands with their suits and

ties and um

ET Menel would be a very good example.

But of course there were many many many

of these bands. Um they could read music

and so on. And then the guitar bands and

the and the concert parties that they

operated with was the other type. And

the two in Ghana, these two wings of

high life never met together until Musa

was formed in 1974.

I can tell you this from personal

experience. You know, I was one of the

founders of Musica. I was one of the

founding 100 members who formed the

Musica. But at that time there was

another um uh musicians union that was

specifically for the guitar bands. And I

there were just one or two of us who

belonged to both because my boore band

was more of a guitar band than the dance

band. But I I joined the musicer because

I I was working with Fisel Helwani and

Sammy Odoor. So I saw that there was a

real split and Nana A and Pedu and all

these guys at first wouldn't join the

musicians union because that split

between the guitar bands or concert

party bands on the one hand and the

dance bands was something to do with

status. One was more high class,

lowerass, literate, illiterate or

whatever you want to call it. I mean, if

you want to know, the reason why I got

into trouble at Legon when I was a

student for being a a a musician wasn't

because I played high life music, it's

because I played with the guitar bands

and they were considered to be bush

music for bush people sleep on the

floor, get drunk on palm wine. So, there

was a class distinction in Ghana between

the two types. It was all called high

life by that time. Nana ampedu a cuku

they all call their music or yamwa on

yenna is high life by that time that was

the general word but there were two

varieties and it wasn't really until the

musicians union and then there was a

very important show that oisa put

together once they had a policy of

bringing guitar band musicians into the

dance bands and I think the ramblers

also did this on what on occasion there

were certain occasions where there was a

leakage between the two types of

highlight

But really the two wings of high life

didn't come institutionally together

until the formation of the musicians

union. And in the end um Nan Pedu and

the people who belong to the guitar band

union and I forgotten what we called it

now but I was a member of that as well.

We we all joined the musicians union and

we just had a single union for all

highlight musicians.

If we go back to the 50s, I mean the

first thing to say is that both the

guitar band musicians and the dance band

musicians all supported the independent

struggle. Um, so it wasn't that one was

against independence or you know

politically they were all on the same

wavelength. They were all encrummerists

if I can put it this way. Um so if we

look at the guitar band first I mean the

most important it's difficult really to

say but I would say Eyami

is very or on wrote a song called the

destiny of Africa the high life um which

was about the formation of what later

became the African Union because you

know it was first of all instigated by

Incruma he called meetings here in Ara I

think in 1958 with Lumumba and others

and secreturi to set up that. So, um,

and a lot of the guitar bands supported

Humensa. I I can give you so many

examples of of guitar bands and not only

the guitar bands, but the concert

parties that they of the theatrical

groups they sometimes worked with also

put on plays in favor of Enruma. So, um,

so it's difficult for me to say, but EK

would be the outstanding one. Um,

Quamemensa, he wrote a song when Encrum

was brought out of prison in 1952, I

think. You know, the British locked him

up. There was also um Bob uh Bob Cole.

Bob Cole was a highlight singer and and

a concert comedian and he had a a band

called the Ghana Trio that also in fact

it was he he was so close to Enruma that

when Enruma was overthrown he was

arrested.

I mean so that was on the guitar band

side. So if you take on Yamwa all the

these people they were pro-CP in the

early days. Um then at the same time the

dance band musicians the the top names

would of course have to have to mention

ET Men at first the tempos and he played

at CPP rallies. He brought out songs

like Ghana Freedom High Life Ghana

Guinea Mali and so on. So, and then of

course this was followed by other bands

like the Ramblers that came out with

work and happiness or the Ahuru band

that was almost an official band of the

CPP. So both the guitar bands and the

and the dance bands and those early

pioneers were aligned with the CPP in

the early days. The independent struggle

and the early era of Enruma. Well, it

was really, if I can put it this way, it

was really the soundtrack of the

independent struggle and not just in

Ghana. Nigeria the same because when n

high life went from Ghana to Nigeria, it

became so Nigerianized that in their

independence celebrations, it it also

featured high life music and not western

ballroom music and so on. But but um

you I could take take it back to the

maybe the late 1940. Let me give you one

specific example. There was a there was

a type of high life called Conoma music

which was a sort of a poor man's high

life. Um and it was played by a concert

party that was formed by Ghanaian

soldiers in fighting in Burma. you know,

uh I don't know if your your listeners

or viewers know this, but about 46,000

or 45,000 Ghanaians fought in the Second

World War. I mean active service with

weapons. 90,000 Nigerians fought and

altogether onethird of a million

Africans fought in the Second World War

against fascism, particularly against

the Japanese. Now because there were so

many Africans fighting in Indochina

uh and Burma and so on the they formed

their own entertainments and they had an

African theater that was run in by I

think it was Bob Vans and some others.

They were soldiers but in their spare

time they put on concert parties and

accompanied themselves with Conoma High

Life. Um so we're talking during the

Second World War itself. Um and they

they staged obviously in pigeon English

cuz they wanted all the African troops.

So when these guys came back to Ghana in

1945 after the war they formed what they

called the Burma trial just like we have

Burma camp we had the Burma trial or

trio. Um so it's a sort of a musical

group um and theatrical group. Then in

1948

something happened which changed

everything as far as Ghana's concerned

and the British. That was the shootings

at Christianberg Castle. Now what what h

happened then as you know immediately

that happened the British lost their

nerve it and you know those Ghanaian

soldiers weren't trying to overthrow the

British they just wanted to pay back pay

for the the effort they had made during

the war war. So it wasn't even overtly

polit political when it started they

were going for pay which they were owed

by the British government. So British

made the mistake of shooting some of

them. Lootings all over AC Ara and

Ghana. The whole, you know, shops were

burning. Lebanese and British shops were

burning. And the Burma Trio decided to

change its name to the Ghana Trio in

1948. This is before Ghana became

officially recognized as Ghana. I mean,

Dana invented the name Ghana for modern

Ghana, but it wasn't used as an inter in

institutional name in Ghana until Ghana

became independent. And so, one of the

first cases we have of the word Ghana

being used by an institution here is a

concert party, a guitar band, and they

call themselves

the Ghana Trio. Later on, Bob Cole came

to run that band. But what I'm saying is

that you can see how close and some of

the concert parties and guitar bands and

as they were roaming around the country

were banned by the British

for putting on sub subversive

plays. These are sort of high life

plays. So you can see even be so right

from the the beginning highlight played

a role in the independent struggle which

explains why ina favored high life when

he came to power because is a quid what

they call a quidd proquo. You help me, I

will help you. So at a basic level, the

highlight bands, whether guitar band,

conc, the concert parties, the dance

bands, they threw their lot in with

Enruma and the CPP. So Encruma also

tried to help them in so many ways.

Setting up state highlight bands and

concert parties, setting up Ghana Films

with a very fine recording studio and so

on, encouraging the formation of music

unions. So they you can you can say that

uh high life was very deeply involved in

the nationalist struggle. uh if you take

western music a lot of it is about love

right romantic odor that's 90% of

western music is about this but with

that and now if you say let's say with

high life today maybe a lot of it or

afroop or whatever you want to call it a

lot of it's about ador but back in those

days odor was not the main topic of

conversation it was the independence of

Ghana was very important philosophical

questions such as the meaning of life

and death problems within your marriages

um problems between the genders maybe

gender uh

you know because there were very few

women in high life back in those days

and commentaries on witchcraft orphans

abusia bonet ajanka jouer these were the

type we and also drunkenness and

prostitution believe it or not because

these are you know a lot of your younger

generations don't realize that a lot of

the problems we have in Ghana

um they you didn't have them in the

traditional days for instance you never

had orphans everybody belonged to a

family in Ghana if you were truly an

orphan in Ghana 100 or 500 years ago you

were dead okay so suddenly because of

the breaking up of the traditional

extended family under the pressure of

colonialism

thousands of orphans appeared We call

them now street children. They didn't

exist. So the high life people had to

make plays and songs about ajunkers and

a whisas and and you know about orphan

children because it was a new

development or if you take the

development of alcoholism, drunkenness

um

ba basically Ghanaian used to drink palm

wine or pito in the north. You have to

drink vast quantities to get

intoxicated. Then the Europeans

introduced Apacheshi and the distilling

of alcohol. Um and then when you got the

urbanization of Ara in the early from

the 1920s and 30s, it wasn't the

families that moved from the rural uh

rural areas. It was the man the man in

the rural area would move to the city to

find work and maybe later on bring his

wife. So you had many thousands of

lonely young migrant workers, men

working in the cities in Kamasi and in

Ara Takarati and so on. I'm talking

about the 1920s,30s and 40s and so on.

So what do they do? They turn to drink

and prostitutes because they've left

their wives behind, their families

behind. They're lonely and they don't

know what to do. So this is one of So

these are problems. A lot of the songs

were about these problems of

urbanization. So you could almost say

that high life not only gave voice to

nationalist sentiments but also express

what in a vernacular way a critique of

the modernization urbanization

westernization that was going on in uh

Ghana at the time. So it provided a

social commentary. That's what I'm not

just in terms of political struggle or

nationalism but in a much much broader

way and love odor was maybe 15% of the

lyrics of high life back then. It's

different now but that's how it was. So

I'm just saying that High Life

provided a social commentary in a very

broad way for Ghanaians at a time when

maybe

you would say that they were illiterate

or they didn't have their own history,

but they were creating their own

history, their own commentary in songs

just like the hip lifers are today

making commentaries about life today.

They were making commentaries about life

in those days. And um what is so

precious for for Ghanaians and in fact

not just Ghanaians but people all over

the world is that if you take all the

high life songs that were recorded from

the 1920s the by the poor people made by

the poor people the rural people who

never wrote their histories never wrote

their thoughts down maybe they were

illiterate the professors and the

doctors can write histories but not the

poor folk. Well the poor folk wrote

their histories in their music and it

was in the high life music. So you could

almost say that from the folklore of

traditional African music, you know, in

if you go back hundreds and hundreds of

years, traditional music is a repos rep

repository of traditional wisdom,

proverbs, um, sayings and so on,

genealogies, histories and so on. You

know, it was all embedded in music and

performance. Well, the high life

musicians simply continued that policy

and the poor people luckily had high

life to express themselves. And now

today a sociologist or political science

scientist or historian could go to

highlight music records going back to

the 1920s

and it's actually called the history of

the inarticulate approach gathering

information from the people who never

wrote down their histories. And of

course it doesn't just apply to Ghana it

applies to the popular music of Africa.

So it's a vast resource that Ghanaian

social scientists and politicians are

sitting on.

[Music]