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Hiplife is a Ghanaian musical style which fuses highlife and hip hop^[1]. It can also be compared to a mix of dancehall, reggae and Ghanaian highlife music. Recorded in Ghanaian languages ( Twi, Ewe,Ga, etc...), hiplife is rapidly gaining popularity throughout West Africa and abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Germany.

[edit] History

The origins of Ghanaian hip hop goes back to the 1980s, when performers such as K.K. Kabobo and Gyedu Blay Ambolley found a small audience performing highlife variations with fast spoken, poetic lyrics. With time, Ghanaians became influenced by American hip hop, reggae, dance hall. There was an emerging underground hip hop collective in the capital Accra

Hiplife's history dates back to the early 1990s when Reginald "Reggie Rockstone" Ossei began to craft this art form with producers Mike Cooke, Rab Bakari, Zapp Mallet and Coal house.Before Reggie's foray into what is now termed hiplife, Talking Drums, consisting of Kwaku-T and Bayku, experimented with choruses and hooks in local languages. In Twi, Reggie would flow over hip-hop beats a style that had been used previously in Mahoney P's debut album Kofi Babone. Reggie Rockstone has been described as the "Godfather of Hiplife" since he spawned a new music genre in the country, After his debut album Makaa Maka, with the hit single Choo boi, several hip life acts followed. Oddly enough, in several radio interviews in 2004, Reggie Rockstone stated that he does not perform hiplife this could be mainly attributed to the fact that he now prefers to rap in English. Other Ghanaian rappers like Lord Kenya, Obour, V.I.P, Obrafuor, The Native Funk Lords (Rapping mainly in pidgen English), Castro Destroyer and MzBel continued the trend of hiplife music which is now one of the most popular forms of music in West Africa^{[citation needed]}.

The most popular Hiplife musicians include Tic Tac, Sarkodie, Vision in Progress (VIP), Asem, Don Cyril(facetious rapper), Obrafour, Edem, Castro and Batman Samini, who won a MOBO award for his contribution to hiplife in 2006. Since the rise of these popular musicians, hiplife has grown in popularity abroad.It must be said though artists like Ayigbe Edem, Kwaw Kesse, Richie, ASEM, Sarkodie,IsCream, ZaQioo R2Bees(Refuse to be Broke) are spearheading the rebirth of hiplife in 2008, that is making hiplife the way the Godfather defined it "Rapping in your local dialect(Twi, Fante, Ga, Ewe etc) over hip hop beats"

[edit] Musical style

It must be noted that hiplife can cover a broad range of musical styles fused together. Artists such as Samini combine reggae/dancehall/ragga scat and patois-tinged sounds of Jamaica with Akan-language lyrics over reggae rhythms fused with Ghanaian melodies. His music is branded by the general populace as hiplife.

Then there are artists such as K.K. Fosu, Ofori Amponsah and Richie who do not rap or 'DJ' per se; but sing with a heavy R&B influence. Verses; bridges and choruses may be in Twi, but the structure and the rhythm fusion is suspiciously based on American R&B.But he and other artiste like himself fall under contemporary highlife.

The majority of hiplife is recorded in a studio environment with heavy emphasis on computer-aided composition, arrangements and production. At this moment, hiplife artist are not known to use live instruments in their performances in front of audiences. Most performances are based on voicing over instrumentals and dubs on Compact Disc. This may be a leading reason why the latest incarnation of Ghanaian music has not reached the ears of World Music promoters or bridged the frontiers of countries across Africa such as Congolese music has done.

Famous hiplife artist include Reggie Rockstone, Kwaw Kese, Ofori Amponsah, Daddy Lumba, Obrafour, Obour, Tinny, Asem,Tic Tac (musician), Mzbel, VIP, Buk Bak, KK Fosu, Batman Samini, Okomfour Kwadee, Ayigbe Edem, Sarkodie,Okyeame Kwame,Bradez, Lord Kenya, Castro (D'Destroyer) Sydney and Dijoe.

Producers include Dijoe, JQ, Appietus, Richie, Okra Dawide^[2], MiD 9ite Rekordz, The Last Two (Hammer), Roro, Zapp Mallet, Nana Quame, Hitz Factory, Big Dave, Kwam1, Panji, Beatmenace, K-Rock and Seven.

Also to be noticed is the emergence of Gh Rap which is mainly underground hip hop made in Ghana the artists in this genre mainly rap in English or pidgen English. Most notable of the Ghanaian rappers and producers are: The Skillions(Jayso, E.L.,Ball J, Jinx Therapy, Midknight, J-Town,) Evil twin, Kwam1, Kevin beats, Gemini, Kwaku-T, Kryptic, Illa Shaz, Mic Wreckers (Lil Shaker,Joey,Killmatic), N-Dex, Peer Pressure crew, Ronny O, Vibe Squad, scientific, Tight Squeeze Family, Trigmatic, Wanlov, Ghana Force and more. Much of Ghanaian rappers emerged after moving from hiplife to specializing in just hip hop

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Hiplife content - songs, lyrics, audio, video, etc.
• Living The HipLife -Documentary on the early years of Hiplife in Ghana with focus on Reggie Rockstone
• Hiplife story
• ghanatimes.com article: "Hiplife: A New Dawn; A New Day"
• ghanatimes.com article: "Hiplife Music Is Noise"
• ghanaweb.com article: "The HIPLIFE story"
• The Hiplife Complex Blog about hiplife in Ghana
• Most popular site for ghana Music Powering the Ghanaian Music Online.
• Honors Thesis on Hip-Life and Ga Drumming