Nigerian and Ghanaian Highlife Mix

Enjoy this lovely mix of classic highlife from Nigeria and Ghana. Included are some of my favorite highlife artists, such as Rex Lawson and Victor Uwaifo. For more highlife or other West African music, check out my Youtube playlists here or here.

Isoboye, Oko, Merengue Scoubidou, and Merengue

Listening to beautiful, jazzy and happy highlife from Nigerian master Cardinal Rex is very relaxing. Check out "Isoboye," and see the great debt West African highlife owes to Caribbean music. However, what I've loved about so much of the highlife of the 1950s-1970s of Ghana and Nigeria is the jazziness of the music and the uniquely West African percussion solos that are quite melodic and irresistibly get your feet moving. I have no idea what the song is about, and though I am not overly fond of the vocals on this track, the light, breezy atmosphere of this piece, really built around the guitar, is unforgettable. 

"Oko" is even better because of more frequent horn contributions to the song. Moreover, it's supposedly a 'merengue' or at least inspired by Caribbean merengue. Like "Merengue Scoubidou" by African Jazz, it shows how other non-Cuban forms of Caribbean music were consumed in West and Central Africa, the very homeland of Afro-Caribbean music! Listen to that guitar! Pure and not contaminated with so much distortion common in rock or metal. Oh, listen to "Merengue Scoubidou" by African Jazz and just try to tell me that Dr. Nico's deceptively simple guitar lines and solo don't uplift your soul! The Ry-Co Jazz version ain't bad at all!

While you're listening to the above, don't forget about "Merengue" by Franco & OK Jazz. Like so much Congolese 'rumba,' it sounds much more like Cuban son than Dominican merengue, though I believe Franco, if he was like Dr. Nico, the guitar sounded somewhat like merengue music to them. Franco's early music from this period and the 1960s is undoubtedly better than his later soukous music and most contemporary Congolese music I have heard. 

Sawa Sawa Sawale

The best part about this Ethiopian remix of a Nigerian hip-hop song based on Cardinal Rex's "Sawale" is that it's ultimate origins lie in Cuba. "The Peanut Vendor" or "El Manicero," a Cuban classic from the early 20th century features the exact same rhythm and similar guajeo. Thus, an old Cuban song with Afro-Cuban rhythms traveled across the Atlantic and influenced Nigerian highlife musician Cardinal Rex's "Sawale" from the 1960s, which is one of my all-time favorite West African songs. If this does not exemplify the broader Black Atlantic world of music transculturation, I do not know what else does. The African diaspora from Cuba and the Caribbean's music returns to the source, West and Central Africa, and then spread to Ethiopia and other regions of the continent. Cuban son, rumba, beguine from Martinique, Haitian kompas, American funk and soul, and jazz have transformed the music of a continent. Listen to a mambo-era recording of "El Manicero" by a Cuban here.

Also, "El Manicero" has been used for other West African highlife musicians, too, such as this one.