Highlife Unbound

Highlife as Trilocal and Transnational Music Culture 1950-1967

Series: 

Author:
Markus Coester
Highlife Unbound unfolds the trilocal and transnational history of Highlife, Anglophone West Africa's first modern popular music. It introduces Highlife as a travelling cultural practice and trilocal community by investigating the interrelatedness of Highlife-making in the Gold Coast/Ghana, Nigeria, and England between 1950 and 1967, the time when Highlife became modern popular music culture. It does this through an in-depth focus on travelling musicians, Highlife in three countries, and the circulation and appropriation of recorded music. The African Diaspora contact points of music-makers from the Caribbean and West Africa in England are an important subject of the book as are the music’s forgotten London sites.
Copyright Year:
2026
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-73396-1
Publication:
16 Feb 2026
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-73395-4
Publication:
19 Mar 2026
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About MyBook
Markus Coester, Dr. habil. (Ph.D. 2003, Habilitation, 2015) is a cultural anthropologist and ethnomusicologist at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is a project director in the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple - Reconfiguring African Studies. His work and research have centred on music and culture, mainly Highlife, preservation, digitisation, and recirculation of important music archives and collections, like the Olive Lewin Collection in Jamaica and the GBC Gramophone Library in Ghana.
Acknowledgements
List of Figures

Introduction
 1 Recorded Music in Anthropological and Ethnomusicological Research
 2 Highlife and Studying Popular Music
 3 Summary of Chapters
 4 Note on Dates
 5 Discographical Note on Shellac and Vinyl Records

1 A Trilocal and Transnational Approach to Highlife
 1 Beyond National Boundaries
 2 Highlife’s Transnationality and the Highlifers’ “common cause”
 3 Routes and (New) Roots – Travelling Towards Highlife Modernity and the Diaspora
 4 Challenging Genre and Class Boundaries – Creating Sensory Equality

2 Highlife Before the “Peoples’ Music”, and Its Inspirational Streams
 1 “Proto-highlife”
 2 The Brass-Band Aesthetic
 3 HMV’s GV s and the Latin Sound
 4 Accordion and Piano

3 Highlife Going Modern and Popular
 1 Key Sites of Highlife

4 Early Popular Highlife in the Gold Coast
 1 Rans Red Spot and the Black Jivers
 2 The Tempos and Jazz-Consciousness
 3 The Afro-Cuban Sound
 4 E.T. Mensah Changes Course
 5 Indigenizing Afro-Cuban
 6 The Rhythm Aces and Hot Shots

5 Speeding Up the Cultural Revolution: Nigerian Highlife
 1 Bobby Benson, Nigeria’s Highlife King
 2 Atari Ajanaku Travelling “Early Nigerian Highlife”
 3 The West African Rhythm Brothers
 4 Willie Payne and His Mambo Orchestra
 5 Delta Dandies
6 Merging Highlife and the Afro-Cuban
 1 Chris Ajilo
 2 “Cool Ginger peps up Piccadilly”
 3 Kwamalah Quaye Sextetto Africana
 4 On the Move – Chris Ajilo & His Cubanos, and Sammy Akpabot

7 Styling Highlife in London
 1 African Jazz Highlife in London
 2 Caribbean Jazz Highlife – Shake Keane and His Highlifers
 3 London Calypso and Mento

8 “Highlife Travels All Along” – Time for Highlife Proper!
 1 A Foreign Idiom
 2 E.T. Mensah’s Trip to England
 3 Kitch’s “Return Home”
 4 “Children of Africa”
 5 “West Africa’s No. 1 Dance Band”
 6 Highlife “Cool Cats” and Transnational Naming

9 Independence, Re-Africanization and the (Late 50s’) Negotiations of Highlife’s Boundaries
 1 Independence Calypsos
 2 Ayi Kojo, Eddie Lamptey and Squire Addo
 3 “Ghana Freedom”
 4 “Nigeria freedom”

10 Travelling Music-Makers and the Ghana-Nigeria Highlife Connection
 1 Havana Delta Dandies – Jibril Issa, Bill Friday and Co.
 2 The Alkot Dandies
 3 The Star Rockets Led by Scorpion Mensah
 4 The New Super Group – Rhythm Aces
 5 E.T. Mensah, the Highlife Ambassador
 6 The Stargazers
 7 The Shanbros Band, Led by Issa and Ajax Bukana
 8 “Longman Akwa”, E.C. Arinze and “Paulina”
 9 Zeal Onyia and Calypsonian John Santos Martin  10 Bill Friday’s Down Beats
 11 The Touring Tempos
 12 Nat Buckle and the Star Aces
 13 Sammy Obbot, Ghana’s “Best Band of the Year” and Joss Aikins
 14 “Time for Highlife”

11 Melodisc Records and London Highlife
 1 Introducing the West African Rhythm Brothers to Melodisc – Ade Bashorun
 2 Melodisc’s A&R – Steve Rhodes
 3 “African Highlife” and Ginger Johnson’s Cosmopolitan Sound
 3 Rhodes, “Oju Rere” and “Drink a Tea”
 4 “Zik, Awolowo and Sadauna” – Willie Payne’s Freedom Praise
 5 Rans Boi Reinterpreting New Roots in London

12 Hubs of London Highlife – the Abalabi and Club Afrique
 1 The Abalabi Club
 2 Highlife, Now at Club Afrique

13 Going Places in the Late 50s: London Venues and Beyond
 1 Band Africana and the Amazo Club
 2 European Highlife Travels, 1959–1961 – Rans Boi
 3 Nyaniba House and the Peoples Highlife Band
 4 Town Hall Popularity, 1959–1965

14 Fela Kuti Revolutionizing Highlife
 1 Claiming Style
 2 Fela’s Modern Jazz
 3 Discovering New Roots

15 Star-Studded Journeys
 1 All Stars Meeting (former) All Stars
 2 The Black Star(s) in the Centre
 3 Roy Chicago at St Pancras

16 Jazz Routes into Highlife
 1 Calypso and Jazz
 2 Listening across the Atlantic
 3 The African Jazz Messengers

17 The Demise of Highlife as a Travelling Cultural Practice and Trilocal Community

Appendix 1: Selected Discography

References
Index
Academic/University Libraries, Music/Culture/History Libraries, Media House Libraries, African Studies, African Music Studies, Popular Music Studies, Highlife Studies, Jazz Studies, Caribbean Studies, African and Caribbean History, African Diaspora, Black Britain, Post-colonial Britain, Anthopology of Circulation, Mediatization, Cosmopolitanism, Life stories/writing; researchers, students, African Music scholars, Black Atlantic scholars, Black British scholars, African Music and Highlife experts, a wider readership of popular music, African music and World Music fans; music journalists; popular music interested general public.
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