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HIGHLIFE MUSIC IS NOT DEAD - SLY COLLINS

Obiba Sly Collins, a veteran Ghanaian highlife musician, songwriter, and producer, has expressed his worry over the growing perception that highlife music is dead. He said highlife music is not declining but the future rather looks bright, adding that it is the only music that truly promotes the Ghanaian culture.
In an interview with BEATWAVES, Sly Collins said, “We need to flood the industry with more highlife songs and I believe it’s time we re-brand highlife to meet the demand of its lovers in Ghana and beyond. I will urge music stakeholders to support the highlife music because it belongs to us.” Obiba Sly Collins indicated that highlife music can gain the much-needed premium if young musicians make conscious efforts to collaborate with other experienced industry players to produce good content.

He mentioned that highlife musicians should be more creative and innovative with highlife music and infuse their songs with elements that appeal to the youth. The veteran Ghanaian highlife musician, however, called on Ghanaian highlife musicians to come together as a team and work tirelessly to promote highlife music on the international music scene. He, therefore, urged all managers of hotels, night club, pubs and restaurants in the country to use their facilities to promote Ghanaian highlife music. Obiba Sly Collins stated that since those facilities are special points of contact for travelers and tourists who visit the country, there is the need to lay more emphasis on it.

 

YEAR OF RETURN PERFECT FOUNDATION FOR FUTURE INVESTMENTS – TOURISM MINISTER

The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Babara Oteng Gyasi has expressed optimism that the interests and investment “The Year of Return” has generated will spill over into the year 2020.

“The year of return is just the foundation and we are leveraging and building on it going forward and we are going to derive immense benefit from it,” she noted. At a durbar held on Tuesday, August 20 to welcome a number of Diasporans who had come to Ghana for the event, the minister reiterated that the commemoration is a year’s program because 2019 marks the 400th year of the beginning of the slave trade so we set out a yearlong program of activities.

“But we are leveraging it as a foundation going forward for the years to come. So you might notice that there are people who may have heard what is going on in Ghana and were not able to visit this year and thus will come next year,” she said. She noted that there are people who want to have activities but they couldn’t fit it in this year so we are looking at programming them for next year.

Activities like the Ghana carnival in November and the Sankofa music festival are expected to be part of the major events that climax the program. The Year of Return Ghana 2019 is a marketing campaign targeting Africans in the diaspora to mark 400 years since the first slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia.