Downloads   Galeries   Forums   Audios   Vidéos   Liens   Livre d´or   Partenaires   Contact   
  Accueil
  Actualité
  Régions/Peuples
  Historique
  Sawanité
  Le Ngondo
  Tourisme
  Littérature
  VIP
  F.A.Q
  Agendas
  Evénements
  Annonces
  Projets
  Communauté



      


29.08.2006

The Rebirth of Highlife 

By Alex Last
BBC, Lagos

Fatai Rolling Dollar is 79, but you wouldn´t know it.

Small and thin, eyes sparkling beneath his signature cloth cap, cigarette and guitar in hand, he´s the oldest of the highlife stars still active on the music scene.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, highlife was the sound of West Africa.

It was Africa´s first example of musical fusion between African traditional songs and rhythms with western styles such as jazz, Caribbean calypso, Cuban son, rumba and military band music.

The new forms spread as sailors brought new influences and instruments back to the West African coast from the 1920s.

It got its name because the bands played in clubs frequented by the elite; people who were living the high life.

Made famous in Ghana, highlife spread across the region. It was pioneered in Nigeria by the likes of Bobby Benson, Dr Victor Olaiya, and Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson.

Rolling Dollar started playing music in the 1940s, first using a thumb piano, before moving onto the guitar, and joining highlife bands in Lagos in the hey-day of the 1950s and 1960s.

Decline

But in Nigeria, the music gradually went into decline - sparked by the Biafran civil war from 1967 to 1970 which split up bands, as musicians joined the army, and nightclubs closed.

"The whole band´s boys went to join the army, the navy and the air force," Rolling Dollar recalls.
"One day, we went to play at a club, and an army officer went and smacked one of my boys.

"The next day he went and joined the army. And so from that time, highlife went down, because there was no-one to play it."

In the years that followed, new forms of music derived from highlife took over in Nigeria: Juju and Afro-beat in the 1970s and 1980s.

These days hip-hop, R&B, and rap dominate the Nigerian music market.

But some people are trying to revive highlife.

In Ojay´s bar in Lagos, the last Sunday of each month is the Great Highlife Party, when old stalwarts like Rolling Dollar come and play with the bands.

It´s a chance to hear the classics, but also to bring the music to a new generation.
"Highlife declined over the years, but we are trying to revive it, because we feel that this young generation should know where our musical culture is coming from," says Benson Idonije, a music journalist and broadcaster who has been promoting the highlife revival.

Mr Idonije hopes the music will influence Nigeria´s current music scene.

"Just now hip-hop is the contemporary thing - you find Nigerians imitating the American style," he says.

"But if they were inflamed by highlife, which we are trying to bring back, they would be fusing it with highlife.

"If you listen to Ghanaian hip-hop, they call it hip-life, you find that in that country, even though it is hip-hop, the underlying beat is highlife. So they have an identity, but we don´t have in Nigeria, because young Nigerians are looking up to America for their future."

Packed

Inside the club, the place is packed.

On stage, the large bands with drums, bongos, guitars, trumpets and saxophones play the tunes, often cover versions of the hits from decades ago.

Then Rolling Dollar bounds on stage, singing, playing the guitar, and dancing.
Each tune is about 10 minutes long, and the performance defies the years. Nigerians both old and young are up and dancing at the front.

Many of those in the queue to get in are younger Nigerians in their 20s and 30s.

"Highlife is the kind of music that when you listen to it, you feel more relaxed, than this modern music," one young woman says.

A young man joins in: "When I was growing up, my dad used to listen this kind of music. I´m more interested in finding out what it was about.

"Highlife is our heritage, its something that I grew up with, its something I enjoy, listening to and dancing to."

Although many of the old highlife greats are no longer alive, the music is still popular, and as many including Rolling Dollar believe, its influence on Nigerian music over the decades means it will never die.

"Today we are trying to push highlife back again. And it´s coming back. From highlife, people got something - they got hip hop. What they are singing and dancing to now, it´s from highlife."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5287018.stm

Published: 2006/08/28 01:40:17 GMT
 

Source:  | Hits: 26057 | Envoyer à des amis  ! | Imprimer ! | Réagir(0)

PLUS DE NOUVELLES


  Grand Sawa: Le retour aux démons du «qui perd gagne» dans les Chefferies de la région du Littoral
( | 18.02.2010 | 46129 hits  | 2 R)

  LE PEULE DUALA
( | 15.02.2010 | 55832 hits  | 0 R)

  In Memoriam: Mbella Sonne Dipoko - The Bard Who Dared To Be Different
( | 13.02.2010 | 38863 hits  | 0 R)

  Qui est Modi Din Jacob?
( | 13.02.2010 | 33277 hits  | 0 R)

  Malimba : Polémique autour de la chefferie supérieure
( | 06.02.2010 | 43616 hits  | 3 R)

  Wilson Ndeh Ntumazah parle
( | 06.02.2010 | 34367 hits  | 0 R)

  Chefferie Malimba: Le Prince René frappe du poing sur la table
( | 05.02.2010 | 41085 hits  | 0 R)

  Interview NDOUMBE MARCELIN sur ILIMBE-ILIMBE
( | 04.02.2010 | 34100 hits  | 0 R)

  UPC: Le président Ndeh Ntumazah est mort! The Passing of a Great Man!
( | 25.01.2010 | 38661 hits  | 0 R)

  Ngando Picket : Star du métro parisien
( | 16.01.2010 | 38150 hits  | 0 R)

  Peuplesawa rencontre Cyrille Ekwalla
( | 08.01.2010 | 48891 hits  | 1 R)

  Ngondo: une fête « laïque » camerounaise ou uniquement douala ?
( | 16.12.2009 | 28621 hits  | 0 R)

  Ngondo 2009: Rideau
( | 16.12.2009 | 26144 hits  | 0 R)

  Les Sawa se mobilisent autour du Ngondo
( | 05.12.2009 | 29312 hits  | 0 R)

  Ngondo 2009 Sport nautique:
( | 05.12.2009 | 27888 hits  | 0 R)

  Retrocession du site du Ngondo
( | 08.11.2009 | 35070 hits  | 0 R)

  Malimba : ...En passant par le village des pêcheurs
( | 18.10.2009 | 34655 hits  | 0 R)

  François Missé Ngoh : L´homme tranquille du Makossa
( | 16.10.2009 | 33421 hits  | 0 R)

  Increvable Sarah Kala Lobe Kuta
( | 14.10.2009 | 35861 hits  | 0 R)

  Tourisme culturel : un Gorée camerounais méconnu
( | 14.10.2009 | 26606 hits  | 0 R)

  Biographie du premier martyr SAWA CAMEROUNAIS:EYUM EBELE Charley DIDO
( | 20.09.2009 | 38299 hits  | 0 R)

  D`où viennent les DEÏDO
( | 20.09.2009 | 36533 hits  | 0 R)

  Le rôle de la jeunesse dans la construction nationale : l’exemple d’Adolf Ngoso Din
( | 11.08.2009 | 33142 hits  | 0 R)

  EKAMBI BRILLANT
( | 08.08.2009 | 35680 hits  | 0 R)

  Prince René Douala Manga Bell : « Ngondo Ô Canada 2009 »
( | 25.07.2009 | 42951 hits  | 0 R)

  Préserver l’intégrité territoriale des Malimba.
( | 24.06.2009 | 39360 hits  | 0 R)

  Le Cameroun pleure Charlotte Odette Mbango Samé La chanteuse est décédée au kremlin Bicêtre, près de Paris
( | 06.06.2009 | 45044 hits  | 0 R)

  Geologist Discovers Diamond Deposits in Cameroon
( | 11.05.2009 | 42293 hits  | 0 R)

  Kassav va "tropicaliser"... le Stade de France samedi prochain !
( | 09.05.2009 | 31605 hits  | 0 R)

  CAMEROUN, Autopsie d´une Pseudo-Independance (le film)
( | 04.05.2009 | 32838 hits  | 0 R)

  La transmission du socle identitaire et culturel : la naissance de milliers d’étoiles au coeur des larmes de nos enfants
( | 26.04.2009 | 31657 hits  | 0 R)

  Conférence Internationale Contre le Racisme
( | 26.04.2009 | 30156 hits  | 0 R)

  Théâtre: Duala Manga Bell sur les planches
( | 30.03.2009 | 41083 hits  | 0 R)

  Invitation pour la promotion des langues africaines : le cas de la langue Basaa
( | 30.03.2009 | 36199 hits  | 0 R)

  Voyage au cœur de Yabassi. le Nkam fait du surplace. D’aucuns pensent qu’il est maudit”
( | 30.03.2009 | 34499 hits  | 0 R)

  Manu Dibango: Ce que je pense….
( | 30.03.2009 | 33695 hits  | 0 R)

  Si votre mari suggère l´accouplement...
( | 08.03.2009 | 39158 hits  | 1 R)

  NGONDO : LE SUICIDE D’UNE ORGANISATION
( | 02.03.2009 | 38828 hits  | 1 R)

  Gustave FOUDA-ZIBI alias ZIBINOH est décédé le mercredi 16 avril 2009 à Bonn en Allemagne.
( | 28.02.2009 | 31625 hits  | 0 R)

  greve Guadeloupe : "la gwadloup ce tan nou pa ta yo !!
( | 24.02.2009 | 31066 hits  | 0 R)

  Le Ngondo, l’administration et la chefferie Bassa
( | 18.02.2009 | 36185 hits  | 0 R)

  Ambroise Mbia, une icône du théâtre au Cameroun!
( | 14.02.2009 | 33903 hits  | 0 R)

  Marthe Moumié, la "fidèle combattante" inhumée à Ebom Essawo
( | 02.02.2009 | 38714 hits  | 0 R)

  Organisation du tissu social traditionnel Bassa
( | 28.01.2009 | 41392 hits  | 0 R)

  Hommages Jean Marc Ela
( | 28.01.2009 | 38970 hits  | 0 R)

  Zoom sur Jean Jacques Ekindi, alias le « Chasseur du lion »
( | 12.01.2009 | 43820 hits  | 0 R)

  Marthe Moumié, la veuve de Félix, retrouvée étranglée au Cameroun
( | 11.01.2009 | 39559 hits  | 0 R)

  The Great Harlem Debate: Is Obama Good For Black People?
( | 30.12.2008 | 32545 hits  | 0 R)

  Ngondo 2008 “o bodu” (en action) est entré dans l’histoire
( | 15.12.2008 | 27378 hits  | 0 R)

  Sissy Dipoko revient avec la réédition de son album à succès MUNAM
( | 12.12.2008 | 38835 hits  | 0 R)



   0 |  1 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  5 |  6 |  7 |  8 |  9 |  10 |  11 |  12 |  13 |  14 |  15 |      ... >|



Jumeaux Masao "Ngondo"

Remember Moamar Kadhafi

LIVING CHAINS OF COLONISATION






© Peuplesawa.com 2007 | WEB Technology : BN-iCOM by Biangue Networks