The Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) has pledged to launch an annual national highlife music contest as part of its quest to elevate highlife music to a premier genre in Ghana and make it relevant globally.
This was revealed in an interview on Joy Prime’s Prime Morning show yesterday by the president of MUSIGA, Bessa Simons. According to him, highlife music creates an authentic music identity for Ghana, and there is a need to preserve and make it more relevant.
Bessa Simons also mentioned the union’s plan to place a prize on Telecel Ghana Music Awards’ highlife category to attract artists to produce more high-quality highlife music. “We want to make highlife attractive. For big platforms like TGMA, we will support the highlife category there. And we will make sure there is a prize that MUSIGA can put on highlife and whoever wins that category, wins the prize. And we will make this prize so attractive,” he revealed.
According to Mr. Simons, Ghana can draw global music lovers to the genre and increase the audience for Ghanaian music by asserting its origins and prioritizing highlife music. “Once we intentionally make highlife a national brand so that wherever you go, you’ll hear highlife, and we’ll channel highlife to Ghana, that will help us because people will come looking for us rather than we, going looking for them,” he stated.
The MUSIGA president urged all Ghanaians to support the highlife genre by listening to it and participating in its promotions. He further encouraged musicians to incorporate highlife beats into other genres to foster a broader appreciation and revival of the genre.
