Hiplife Music in Ghana

When hiplife was introduced in Ghana in the 1990s, many music lovers including highlife musicians did not take the artistes serious. However, because it involved mainly the youth, most young Ghanaians later embraced it.

The hiplife music scene is distinctive and some of the artistes are extremely talented and exhibit excellent stagecraft as well.

Since the country has a strong highlife music tradition, the hiplife artistes today often blend the foreign sounds with local ones.

Realizing they would make an impact rapping in local languages, they now rap either in Twi or in a blend of Ga and Pidgin English.

Examples of such artistes are Wutah, Tinny, VIP and Tic Tac (whose music video was featured on MTV), Sidney, Slim Busterr, just to mention a few.

Slim Busterr, who has grown on the Ghanaian hiplife music scene, recalled his early days when he was into singing and dancing competitions. He said he actually started as a dancer and later trained to become a hiplife artiste.

Isaac Aidoo, chief executive of Goodies Music Productions recalled the first hiplife musical concert in Ghana. He said they were the platforms through which many youth were first introduced to genre and the culture.

Hiplife music in Ghana has however influenced the way of life of the youth, in that they have adopted foreign culture through hiplife and hiphop music.

Various hiplife music videos portray how important Ghanaian rappers had become on the international music market.

While mainstream artistes address important social and political issues in their works, many say it is the underground rap artistes in Ghana that go the farthest.

Some of the artistes, however, often struggled to be heard because promoters feared promoting their music on the grounds that they were either too profane or lacked sense of direction.

Nevertheless, the direction some hiplife songs have taken could partly be attributed to social activities which had a huge influence on Ghana culture.

Ladies have had a difficult time venturing into it since it is a male-dominated field and as such, only few female artistes are part of rap groups.

Some of the female rap artistes who have made an impact on the Ghanaian rap scene are Mzbel, Abrewa Nana, Ewura Esi among others.

Hiplife in Ghana today includes raglife which shifts towards rap/reggae. Major artistes in this area include Samini, OD4, Okuraseni and a host of others.