Female Highlife Performers in Ghana: Expression, Resistance, and Advocacy

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Description

This book offers a detailed analysis of the history of female musicians in the Highlife music tradition of the Republic of Ghana, particularly the challenges and constraints these women faced and overcame. Highlife a form of West African music infusing Ghanas traditional Akan dance rhythms and melodies with European instruments and harmonies grew in popularity throughout the 20^th century and hit its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. Although women played significant roles in the evolution and survival of the genre, few of their contributions have been thoroughly explored or documented. Despite being disregarded and ignored in many spheres, female Highlife musicians thrived and became trailblazers in the Ghanaian music industry, making particularly vibrant contributions to Highlife music in the 1970s. This book presents the voices of female Highlife artists and documents the ideological transformations expressed through their musical works, exploring the challenges they confronted throughout their musical careers and their contributions to music and culture in Ghana.

Reviews

Female Highlife Performers in Ghana is a significant contribution to the scholarly study of female agency, resistance, empowerment, and liberation. Focusing on brave and remarkable women who blazed the trail from the 1960s to the current crop of female artists in the challenging landscape of the male-dominated music industry, Nana Amoah-Ramey weaves a tapestry of biographical narratives, song texts, and ethnographic descriptions onto the fabric of Ghanas socio-economic and political aspirations and nationhood. It is a must-read text that will animate discussions among students and scholars of African music as well as the general public. -- Kwasi Ampene, University of Michigan, author of Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro
Dr. Amoah-Rameys multi-disciplinary research has unraveled the enormous contributions of female Ghanaian Highlife music performers. Not only does the book give the historical and cultural overview of womens contribution to Ghanaian Highlife music performers, it also gives up-to-date insights of the new music genres they perform in Ghana today. -- Habib Iddrisu, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Dance, University of Oregon

Author Bio

Nana Abena Amoah-Ramey is adjunct assistant professor in the Department of African American and African diaspora studies at Indiana University.