Looking at the rate at which afrobeat is growing in Ghana and in other African countries, a lot of people have accepted the genre as the new wave and some legends in the Ghanaian music industry have expressed worry over the youth’s neglect for the local highlife genre.
Upcoming Ghanaian Afropop musician, Jeff Moes, speaking on this issue, opined that it is not a fact that the afrobeat genre is taking over Ghana’s indigenous highlife music as people usually say.
He said in an interview with Foster Romanus on the Late Nite Celebrity Show which airs on eTV Ghana that, “Afrobeat stems from highlife so I wouldn’t say anything is lost because if highlife did not exist, afrobeat would not exist either”.
Jeff commented that afrobeat is only making a name over highlife because afrobeat is more like a unifying term. He explained that other countries like Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya are also doing afrobeat but adding their own style to it so that it’s all afrobeat but unique to each country.
This is the same way that Ghanaians are improving on highlife music to join the afrobeat wave and unite in sound with the other countries. ”I think it’s a good thing because it’s a unifying term and it brings us together as an African industry”, Jeff Moes further added.