“HighLife Music Is Never Dead” – Mark Okraku Mantey

Regarding Shatta Wale’s petition to define one genre as Ghanaians that can be directly linked to all music works in Ghana, Mark Okraku-Mantey, the Deputy Minister-designate for Tourism, Arts and Culture, has disagreed with the statement that Highlife music has been lost in Ghana’s industry as other music genres have gained popularity.

During his vetting by Parliament’s Appointment Committee on Tuesday, he said that the Highlife genre is the default rhythm among the different music genres that new musicians are presently experimenting with.

People still make Highlife songs, according to him, and despite the modification and adaptation to other foreign genres, the majority of them have rudiments of Highlife.

He stated that the type of Highlife songs created now are the ones that the youth appreciate the most, but that this does not imply the genre is dead.

“We still enjoy highlife, and we still produce highlife, but it has taken on a new form for today’s young. Highlife will be tough to extinguish since “most of the music we listen

Other industry players such as Kwabena Kwabena, Arnold Asamoah Baidoo, and others have attested to the fact that Ghana is highly renowned for Highlife, despite our lackluster efforts to promote the genre internationally. Today, even dancehall and other forms of music, all have the rudiments of highlife,” he explained.

Source: Dklassgh.com