ACCES 2019 to journey through highlife music

The session, titled Highlife Music – A Journey Though the Genre, will be held at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences on 29 November and will feature University of Ghana professor John Collins and highlife musician Kyekyeku, with the two panellists set to discuss the early history and development of the Ghanaian musical tradition.

Kyekyeku and his band, Ghanalogue Highlife, will perform at Alliance Française Accra a day before the conference session.

Collins is a music intellectual and musician who has been active on the Ghanaian music scene since 1969. He graduated from the University of Ghana (1972) and University at Buffalo (1994) with a BA degree in sociology & archaeology and a PhD in ethnomusicology, respectively. He began teaching at the University of Ghana’s music department in 1995 and obtained a full professorship at the same institution in 2002. Collins has written more than 25 research publications on such topics as highlife, dance, world music and Fela Kuti.

Kyekyeku represents a generation of young Ghanaian musicians promoting highlife music in his home country and abroad. His sound is a mixture of energetic highlife and Afro-funk and harks back to highlife and Afrobeat progenitors Ebo Taylor, Pat Thomas and Nana Ampadu. His lyrics are reminiscent of village songs, protest songs, love songs and ancient African spirituality. Kyekyeku and his band have performed at various events across Africa as well as Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) and Latitude Festival (UK).

Highlife Music – A Journey Though the Genre will start at 10.45am on Friday, with Collins presenting archival photography as part of his presentation and Kyekyeku complementing the talk with audio references.

View the full ACCES 2019 programme here. 

Registration is mandatory and African delegates register for free.

About ACCES

ACCES is a pan-African trade event for music industry players to exchange ideas, discover new talent and create business linkages. ACCES is held in a different African city every year, attracting active music industry players from across the globe.

ACCES is organised by the Music In Africa Foundation, a non-profit and pan-African organisation, in partnership and with the support of Siemens Stiftung, Goethe-Institut, Reeperbahn Festival International, Alliance Française, BMG, MediaSound Hamburg, the Multimedia Group, Africa Art Lines, Afrikayna, the Gold Coast Hub, the Year of Return, the Prince Claus Fund and the ANT Mobility Grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

This year ACCES has a partnership with Reeperbahn Festival. The partnership creates a framework for the festival to collaborate with ACCES in facilitating sustainable business engagements and exchange between European and African music businesses and professionals, as well as the provision of performance opportunities to musicians in both territories.

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