I will never take a highlife award – K.K Kabobo

Veteran singer K.K. Kabobo has stated that if he is ever given an award in the name of highlife, he will not take it.

K.K Kabobo said he does not consider himself a highlife artiste but a multi-genre musician.

“when you take one album of a multi-genre artiste, you get varieties of genres in that one album.,” he told Andy Dosty on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM on Monday.

According to him, many people rejected the highlife music in his time which affected the kind of music he played.

He explained that in the early years of his music career, he played what many of the people requested at shows.

K.K Kabobo added that the dance and guitar bands he played with at shows focused mostly on funks, reggae and smoochy music.

“There are shows if you start playing highlife they will shout ‘no’. Hence for many shows, the promoter will tell you don’t come and play any highlife here,” he stated.

Some of the music played at the shows included music from Jamaica’s Jimmy Cliff, America’s Johnny Nash or serious funks from soul/funk group Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire, K.K Kabobo revealed.

The legendary musician stated, “playing those songs makes you a multi-genre musician,”

Veteran musician Sloopy Mike Gyamfi who was also on the show agreed with his colleague’s point. He stated that they were more of contemporary artistes.

“We did not play the music like the concert bands. We learned a little reggae, soul, highlife and others so when we took the stage to perform the Ghanaian music, there were traces of those sounds in our music,” he stated.

Sloopy Mike claimed they created their own sounds which were different from the highlife sounds of AB Crentsil and other veteran musicians then.

“Because of the traces of foreign sounds in our music, we are not true highlife musicians,” he stated.