History of Burger Highlife Music

E.T.Mensah & Tempos (1952)

Tempos type highlife after 1945

British and United States servicemen were stationed in Accra and an aircraft assembly plant was set up at Takoradi port. Indeed, if Britain had been defeated by the Germans, Ghana (the then British Gold Coast) would have become abase for a British Government in exile – like De Gaulle and his Free French army in Congo Brazzaville.

These foreign soldiers in Ghana loved swing and jazz and, together with Ghanaian dance orchestra musicians who could read music, they set up the Black and White Spots and the Tempos swing bands to entertain the troops.

The Tempos survived the war and the departure of the foreign service-men, so it became an all-Ghanaian group which from 1948 and under the leadership of E.T. Mensah began to concentrate more on local on highlife; but with a strong swing, jazz, calypso and Afro-Cuban touch. During the 1950’s and 60’s many Ghanaian and Nigerian dance bands modelled themselves on the Tempos.

Affects of Ghanaian nationalist struggle on popular music

The war sped up the, particularly after the 1948 anti-British demonstrations by Ghanaian war veterans. As a result independence was obtained in 1957 under the leadership of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah. This nationalist upsurge affected the popular music. E.T. Mensah’s Tempos for instance wrote independence songs and played at Nkrumah’s C. P. P. rallies.

Black Beats (1952)  King Bruce seated on left

Indeed, it would be true to say that the Tempos type highlife dance-bands (like the Black Beats, Rhythm Aces and Red spots), with their then sophisticated swing-jazz line-up, reflected the spirit (zeitgeist) of the early independence era. For just as these bands successfully gave western instrumentation an African content (i.e., highlife), so independence was ushering in a western type nation-state, but run by Africans.

Kwaa Mensah and E.K. Nyame

Likewise the guitar bands and concert parties were involved in the independence struggle. After the Ghanaian members of the wartime ‘West African Theatre’ returned home to Ghana as the ‘Burma Jokers Concert Party’, they renamed it in 1948 into ‘Ghana Trio’ in line with rising nationalist sentiments. Both the ‘Axim Trio’ and Bob Ansah’s concert parties wrote plays in favour of Nkrumah, whilst guitar bands, like those of Kwaa Mensah and E.K. Nyame released pro-independence records.

State highlife bands at 1950’s

Due to the active support of highlife performers to the independence struggle, Nkrumah’s government supported the local popular arts. In the late 1950’s the Nkrumah government began establishing state highlife bands and concert parties as part of its ‘African personality’ policy and this led to the first employment of actresses instead of the female impersonators of the earlier concert parties. Furthermore in the sixties concert party plays and music began appearing on State radio and later TV.

Ga youth ‘kpanlogo’ drum-dance (1965)

Nkrumah’s CPP government also directly intervened in 1965 to give the green-light to the popular Ga youth ‘kpanlogo’ drum-dance that was frowned upon by the elders for its inclusion of supposedly indecent dance moves borrowed from popular music idioms like rock ‘n’ roll and the ‘twist’.

The CPP government also encouraged the formation of two trade unions for the urban based highlife dance bands and the more provincial oriented guitar bands/concert parties respectively. But as these were both affiliated to Nkrumah’s CPP they were dissolved after the anti-Nkrumah coup of 1966. It was only after a gap of eight year before another union (MUSIGA) was formed.