PERHAPS all the observers who have, over the last two decades, been shouting themselves hoarse over the belief that highlife music was dying should have saved themselves some hypertension.

Indeed it appears that while no one was paying attention (lost as we were in hiplife and rap), a small crop of young musicians were keeping up the highlife spirit through their performances and far-between album releases. Four of such were Oheneba Kissi, Amandzeba Nat Brew, Daasebre Gyamena and Samuel Owusu.

These four were relatively new artistes but of course they are not the only ones; there were the regular old hands such as A. B. Crentsil, Paapa Yankson, Amakye Dede, Safohene Djeni, Jewel Ackah, Ben Brako, Pozo Hayes and Western Diamonds Band whose music continued to be played on radio. And their significant achievement has been that even when no one seemed to be listening to them save a handful of highlife die-hards, they kept on doing what they believed in. Thank goodness that their persistence has begun to pay off.

Another factor that may have also influenced the “survival” fortunes of highlife is that the large crop of emerging hiplifers themselves realised what great melodies highlife music was endowed with.

Unable to create similarly good melodies themselves (being computer-reliant as they were) they found a smart way round their handicap. They resorted to “sampling”, which in plain language was stealing or at best borrowing without permission. They would borrow a bar or two of a popular highlife song and use it as their chorus while drawing heavily on rap as their main body song.

The bolder and more enterprising hiplifers collaborated with established highlifers to record highlife music with a heavy dose of hip-pop. The cases of Reggie Rockstone and Omanhene Pozo who collaborated with K. Frimpong; and Tic Tac who did similarly with Pat Thomas are examples that come readily to mind.

Emboldened by the modest achievements of the few hiplife-highlife collaborators, others stepped into the fray and many more of such mergers emerged.

Again, the shift towards more highlife music by young hiplifers seemed to have been fuelled by the dynamics of the market. Consumers were warming themselves more and more towards highlife melodies that were more flowy carried sensible messages and above all, could be danced to. Hiplife did not offer itself to much dancing. How could anyone dance to Philomena Pitinge, for example? No wonder Minister Courage Quashigah once compared attempts at dancing to hiplife to the antics of a Praying Mantis.

Today, what have all the changes left us in terms of highlife music? Quite well, I would say. Young Ghanaian musicians are playing more highlife now than they used to do. When they have had to include some hip-pop or rap those segments have been kept rather short. And that is nice.

Interestingly the kinds of highlife music (with or without rap segments) that are being churned out now sound relatively better than many of the old highlife songs we know. Of course we cannot compare the quality and depth of new songs such as Otoolege or You Can’t Touch Me to Adwoa Yankey or All For You.

I expect that if the old highlifers were given the opportunity to re-do some of their songs, they would like to take advantage of the new technical facilities available today to enrich their work. A couple of old hands I have had the privilege to chat with have had some kind words for studio drum programming, for example, for its consistency, stamina and sharp strikes.

While at it, we should be congratulating all the young musicians, engineers and producers who have seen the beauty of highlife and are giving the music type some attention. The list is very long but off the cuff, I recognise Okuraseni Samuel — Dabi Dabi, Obrafuor — Heavy, Batman — Linda, Obuor — Konkontiba, VIP — Ahomka Womu, Praye Shordy, Mzbel — Yopoo, Kwabena Kwabena —.- Aso, Sidney — Obiaa Nye Obiaa and Lord Kenya - Born Again, etc. etc.

Today we can say that the future of highlife is very bright. In both •the melody and rhythm departments, we can easily tell that our young musicians are making definite attempts to sound “highlify” and that is really cool. To me, whether a work of music is realised on live musical instruments or on computer should not be a factor as to whether one is playing high- life or not. The most important thing is for the song to come off well.

As one highlife enthusiast put it, “As long as they don’t stop giving us good highlife we will not stop dancing.”