Music consumers should patronise highlife – Adina

Ghanaian singer Adina has suggested that to encourage a lot of musicians to do highlife, music consumers should develop some love for the genre.

Although she ventures into other genres of music, Adina says highlife comes naturally to her because she grew up listening to it.

Adding her voice to the conversation on unlocking ways of preserving highlife, she told Joy FM’s Kwame Dadzie on Showbiz A-Z that while there are various ways of pushing highlife, a lot of musicians will pursue the genre, if music consumers patronize it.

“When people release highlife music, it should be embrace it. A lot of people should help for it to grow because I feel like in Ghana most people go with what is popular so if a popular genre comes out, if someone does a song that is in the popular genre that is what the kids will promote or even the media houses might want to support.

Let’s intentionally promote highlife music. The more we promote it, the more it will be appealing or interesting to the younger ones for them to also want to also have a taste because at the end of the day most of the artistes that are out there just want a hit song so if industry will support the highlife they want to do to be a hit, I think they will be encouraged. But if they feel like highlife is for old people and it won’t be played at parties or the club [they will be discouraged].

So I feel that we need intentional support from the industry which includes the consumers; they lay people in the house. It should be intentional. We should all embrace highlife music,” she said.

According to him, in as much as most times the musicians come with production ideas in mind, the producers have a crucial role in influencing new styles on consumers.

“Producers, we set the pace. Producers can have an agenda and set the pace because guess what, if I get ten musicians and I send them a certain kind of beat and I know they will love it and within three to four months those people are going to drop those songs and we promote them, trust me it becomes a trend. That’s how Azonto was made,” he said

In the meantime, the President of the Musician’s Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bessa Simons, has also announced plans by the association to motivate highlife musicians.

According to him, MUSIGA will, from next year, award special prizes to winners of the highlife category in the Telecel Ghana Music Awards.

‘Yebewu Nti’ hitmaker Dada Hafco who as also a panellist of the show suggested that if TGMA rather makes the Highlife Song of the Year category the highest award of the scheme, it will whip up musicians’ interest in doing highlife.

The conversation on reviving and preserving highlife has resurfaced after the announcement that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is in the process of making highlife an intangible cultural heritage of Ghana.

It as also been necessitated by Nigerians’ tenacity in pushing the Afrobeats movement to get a global acclaim. For many Ghanaian highlife advocates, the genre which originated from Ghana holds the keys to Ghana’s resurgence on the international music market.