Highlife is Not our Only Heritage - KKD

Kwasi Kyei Darkwah has stated that highlife music is not the only genre Ghanaians are historically good at.

The broadcast journalist and disc jockey theorised that the problem comes from a lack of knowledge when it comes to musical history and acclaim on the global stage.

According to him, Ghana was miles ahead of Nigeria before they started catching up.

They only now surpass Ghana because Ghana has been unserious and proud.

“If you know what you have, if your grandfather has left you a pot of gold, you don’t leave the pot of gold to go and chase brass, Ghanaians play great music, not only Highlife music, we play great Reggae music."

"Reggae is the Caribbean and Caribbean is African, Ghanaians play great Bossa nova, if we tend to go that way, we are very good imitators of Zook, which comes from our Francophone brothers and sisters, we are very good imitators of Zyko, that has been done way back in the day when our bands used to play copyright, however, we should not lose what is known to be Ghanaian, which is Highlife music” he noted. 

“Whatever every Ghanaian musician plays, wherever we transport ourselves to, we should not lose the Highlife music but also I want to make a point about how we have people making incendiary commentary about ourselves, we are at a stage, post-independence where we must learn to look at the good in us and promote that."

"You see when you and I have a conversation privately when my brother and I have discussions about the music industry, not just in Ghana because we’re both Pan-Africans, in Africa, we speak very critically, I doubt if we will speak that way here today”.

He warned Ghanaians to pay attention to themselves and leave the Nigerians who are already ahead. 

“When we are on air(TV), we are talking to everybody in the world and only a fool will wash their dirty linen in public, we must learn to look for the good things our brothers have been able to achieve and start looking for ways to build on those, I’m happy to see the likes of Sarkodie and Manifest, I’m so enthused to hear the sound of Kofi Kinaata."

"I’m so delighted to see what Okyeame Kwame is doing, I’m very proud to see what Kuame Eugene is doing, I’m very very happy to see what even Medikal is doing even though sometimes he goes a bit incendiary with his craft, the point is we have good people who can carry the torch that was lit way before independence”. He concluded.