Daasebre Gyamenah: Celebrating The life of Highlife’s game changer

At the moment where span of highlife was on the downward surge, there surfaced a highlife stalwart who sparked life into highlife giving birth to new genre of music called Contemporary High Life Music, and the person is no other than the Late Daasebre ‘Ahoofe’ Gyamenah also known by his Muslim name as Abubakar Siddiq.

The news of his death on July 29, 2016 struck a ferocious painful blow to music industry considering his legendary status and how massively he impacted music during his reign as one of the finest singers to emerge from Ghana.

The roots of highlife can be traced to a collage of music, from traditional African music to colonial marching band music, to hymn singing and church music.

And as the century went on it absorbed different influences from around the world, highlife got a bit of jazz, a bit of swing, it’s got a bit of blues, it’s got a bit of Latin music. Simply put it was just compilation of different breeds of music around the world.

There have been great people who are considered big stalwarts in the history of highlife which includes the likes Daddy Lumba, Nana Ampadu, Paapa Yankson, AB Crentsil, Amandzeba, Pat Thomas, Amakye Dede, just to mention a few, as they respectively kept the momentum of highlife going during their reign.

Arguably, Daasebre Gyamenah was the game changer as he successful delivered a new breed of music genre called contemporary highlife music.

His exploits in the music industry shall forever live in the hearts of true highlife enthusiasts, his resounding impact on highlife when he surface onto the music landscape in the early 1990’s at a time where highlife was alive and very appealing.