Why Highlife is the Only Sensible Sunday Soundtrack

By V.L.K. Djokoto

Now look here. I know what you're thinking. Sunday morning, perhaps you're at the Polo Club recovering from Saturday's soirée at Villa Monticello, or you're at your cousin's compound in Cantonments discussing family trust portfolios over fresh-pressed juice while the gardener tends to the bougainvillea. Well, I'm here to tell you—with the full authority of someone who has witnessed decades of refined Ghanaian living—that you are missing the essential element of a properly civilized Sunday.

What you need, what this nation's discerning classes desperately need to reclaim, is proper highlife music. Not the pedestrian hotel lobby variety. Not the diluted hiplife attempting to ape foreign sounds. The genuine article. E.T. Mensah and the Tempos. Oscarmore Ofori. The sophisticated, horn-drenched genius that made our nation's cultural elite legendary from Lagos to Léopoldville.

The Ghanaian Sunday among the cultivated set has become strangely diminished. Either you're at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Accra Central making obligatory appearances, or you're at Sandbox or Skybar attempting continental brunches that pale in comparison to what one finds in Mayfair or the 16th arrondissement.

Both approaches, I submit, miss the transcendent possibility of the thing. The Sunday—that sacred interlude between Saturday's Embassy cocktails and Monday's board meetings—should be a day of cultural refinement. Of aesthetic restoration. Of connecting with our most elegant traditions.

Enter highlife. Here is a genre that emerged in the drawing rooms and exclusive clubs of colonial Accra, when our most sophisticated forebears looked at British military bands and palmwine gatherings and thought: "We shall create something magnificent that belongs entirely to us."

The genius of highlife is that it possesses genuine sophistication without pretension. It's complex enough for the cognoscenti at Alliance Française gallery openings, yet retains an authenticity that connects across generations. It's got jazz horns arranged with conservatoire precision, guitar lines as elegant as anything from Rio or Havana, and rhythms that—how to put this delicately—reconnect one with ancestral grace.

It's music that says: "Yes, the markets may be volatile, yes, one must navigate increasingly complex international affairs, but have you considered taking twenty minutes for genuine pleasure?"

This is hardly trivial. I would argue that a proper Sunday highlife session, perhaps with a well-mixed cocktail, does more for one's equilibrium than any amount of wellness retreats in Aburi or therapy sessions with expatriate counselors charging outrageous fees.

When we gained independence in 1957—first in sub-Saharan Africa, as we must never forget—what was playing at Black Star Square before dignitaries and heads of state? Highlife. When Nkrumah entertained foreign ministers and sought to project Ghana's cultural sophistication to the world, what was the soundtrack? Highlife.

E.T. Mensah took the Tempos to London's most prestigious venues, to Lagos high society, to Monrovia's finest establishments. They wore Savile Row suits. They played with a precision that rivaled any European orchestra. They demonstrated that African music could be urbane, cosmopolitan, utterly refined—not "ethnic" or "folkloric" but genuinely high culture.

Compare this to what passes for taste today. Generic sounds imported wholesale from abroad. Music that could emanate from anywhere, belonging to nowhere. We've become cultural tourists in our own country. One must ask: where is the pride? Where is the discernment?

Here's what one does: This Sunday, you rise at a civilized 9:30 AM—not some ungodly early hour, but at a time befitting someone who values rest. You arrange a proper breakfast. Perhaps avocado on sourdough from the bakery at A&C Mall, or a beautifully prepared continental spread if your chef is working Sunday hours.

Then—and this is essential—you put on "Day By Day" by E.T. Mensah and the Tempos. Volume: sufficient to fill the drawing room but not so aggressive as to disturb the neighbors in their compounds.

You will notice something remarkable. The usual Sunday anxiety about the week's obligations will dissolve like sugar in aged rum. Your body will remember movements that education and overseas living had nearly erased. You will understand, viscerally, what it means to be part of Ghana's cultural aristocracy. You will reconnect with elegance as a birthright, not an affectation.

Is this not worth cultivating?

We've become a class that looks everywhere except to our own magnificent heritage. We chase trends from New York and London while our own cultural crown jewels languish like neglected family heirlooms. This is beneath us. We created this extraordinary sound. We gave the world a template for African sophistication.

The very least we can do is spend Sunday afternoon honoring it.

So tomorrow, put aside your Financial Times. Stop pretending to review that development proposal. Cancel the tedious lunch at Serallio. Put on some highlife. Move with the grace your grandparents possessed naturally. Pour yourself something decent—a proper single malt or an excellent South African red. Remember that we once set standards in this, and we can again.

After all, if E.T. Mensah could make West African high society dance with just horns, guitars, and impeccable taste, surely we can manage to enjoy our Sundays with similar elegance.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ebo Taylor is calling from the hi-fi, and I have some refined movement to attend to.

Woezɔ.

The author, writing from his residence in Airport Residential where Sunday afternoons are sacred, recommends starting with E.T. Mensah's "All For You," progressing to Oscarmore Ofori's "Sika Asem," and ending with C.K. Mann's "Funky Highlife," preferably enjoyed with a well-crafted cocktail or vintage champagne.