highlife
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English
Etymology
Noun
highlife (countable and uncountable, plural highlifes)
- (music, uncountable) A genre of music that originated in Ghana in the early 20th century, blending elements of traditional Akan music with Western instruments and ideas.
- 2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 326:
- Anwar took the broom away from the Congolese cleaner – whose name I did not know, whose name no one ever thought to ask – and made her dance with him, to some highlife he had going on the transistor radio he carried everywhere.
- (music, countable) A work or performance in this style.
- 1985, John Collins, African Pop Roots: The Inside Rhythms of Africa, →ISBN, page 76:
- Then he left the stage and listened to us playing highlifes.
- 2012, Nate Plageman, Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana, →ISBN, page 142:
- Several of the city's most prominent ensembles started to incorporate foreign rock 'n' roll numbers into their existing repertories of ballroom, calypsos, and highlifes.
