Hiplife
Hiplife is a music style that is particularly widespread in Ghana . It developed in the 1990s from the widespread Ghanaian highlife music and hip-hop , which was imported from the USA.
Within the Ghanaian youth, Hiplife was as successful as hip-hop in the western industrialized countries. In the cities and especially in Accra there is a large, lively and very competitive scene, which, however, hardly manages to be noticed in the industrialized countries.
Hiplife is based on a dominant 4/4 time, often sampled from highlife tracks, which is rapped over . The music is mostly created in the studio with the help of electronic devices. Live performances often run in full playback, whereby the performance and dance style of the interpreter are important.
As in many varieties of African hip-hop , the artists can fall back on long lines of tradition of narrative chant when rapping. The rappers use all the languages spoken in the country: English , Ewe , Fante , French , Ga , Hausa Twi and local languages, often several languages in one track, not always with a meaningful content.
Reggie Rockstone is the pioneer of Hiplife and inventor of the term . The first Hiplife album was Rockstone's Makaa Maka , released in 1997 . In addition to Rockstone, Lord Lust , Lord Kenya , Buk Bak , Obrafour , Vision In Progress and Nananom can be found on it.
Ghanaian pop music began to develop in the 1980s. The state introduced a tax on musical instruments that made it difficult for many artists to play live music. In Ghanaian emigrant colonies, a market for popular music from Ghana began to establish itself, which increasingly worked with electronic devices, synthesizers and keyboards. The colony in Hamburg , Germany, was formative here ; Following the so-called burger highlife that arose here, a Ghanaian music industry was also able to establish itself.
In addition, since the privatization of the country's media landscape, numerous new and smaller broadcasters have emerged, some of which have been more open to both western pop music and new musical developments in the country.
The scene is highly controversial within the country. The high pressure of competition forces the artists to produce quickly and cheaply. So they often rely on musically simple tracks with provocative and attention-grabbing messages. The scene is therefore under strong criticism, as it violates the morals of the Ghanaians and spoils the youth.