Today Ghana celebrates its independence from Great Britain in 1957 with a public holiday. In the almost 30 years that I’ve known my father-in-law, he’s always lived in West Africa. First in Nigeria and for the past 20ish years he’s lived and worked in Ghana. He has settled with his family in Accra and it’s very unlikely they will ever return permanently to the UK. His wife’s family are all there and his youngest child is about to finish school and move onto university. We’ve only visited him once in Ghana and it will be an experience I’ll never forget. Ghanaians are beautiful, welcoming and keen for visitors to experience their culture and learn their history.

Despite this personal connection to Ghana, I know very little about its music. I know that Highlife spread to neighbouring African nations from Ghana during the 50s and 60s and is one of the musical styles that makes up the wider West African genre of Afrobeat – synonymous mainly with Nigeria.

When we visited Ghana, my father in law’s wife loaned us her car and we took a few days out of family commitments to drive along the coast towards Cote d’Ivoire, stopping wherever we found something interesting. The radio was dodgy but worked well enough for us to experience Ghanaian broadcasting. I’ll be honest, at the time we went, they played back to back Magic System who are from Abidjan. Their song, 1Er Gaou, was on heavy rotation – it is fantastic but didn’t really give us a flavour of Ghanaian music.

I’ve therefore only got 2 tracks to share with you, both from Hilife master, Ebo Taylor (one of these is a very nice remix). I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can add some others.