Veteran highlife musician Amandzeba has expressed concern over the lack of effort by Ghanaians to promote and preserve the highlife music genre, despite its deep roots in Ghanaian culture and global potential.
In an interview on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z, Amandzeba emphasized the need for collective action to protect and project highlife music. “Collectively, we seem to have failed. We normally trivialize our heritage, everything… It’s just like music. When we had highlife, right from the outset, it affected everybody along the coast even all the way to Zaire, Congo, and other places,” he said.
Amandzeba drew parallels to the widespread influence of highlife music, citing iconic artists like Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, and Hugh Masekela who were drawn to the genre. He also noted that international music stars have questioned what Ghanaians are doing to protect highlife.
While praising the efforts of the National Folklore Board to have highlife recognized by UNESCO, Amandzeba stressed the media’s role in ensuring the genre’s survival. “The Chinese can make our kente, they can do anything at all with our own heritage, and then we sit in silence and keep admiring them while we know that we have the thing and must be developed here,” he said.
Recently, Ama Serwah Nerquaye-Tetteh, Secretary General of the Ghana Commission for UNESCO, announced that highlife would soon be listed as Ghana’s intangible cultural heritage, following numerous engagements and conferences by the Ghana Folklore Board and the Ghana Cultural Forum to secure highlife’s place on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).
