Stop re-branding highlife to dancehall and afropop – Rex Omar to young artistes

In his bid to sustain the highlife brand, the Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO) Chairman, Rex Omar has started a campaign to make the genre has a strong Ghanaian identity.

The ‘Abiba’ hit maker told Kojo Preko Dankwa on Kasapa Entertainment on Kasapa 102.5FM last Saturday that the young artistes have refused to associate themselves with the highlife brand because they perceive it to be an old-fashioned genre.

According to Rex Omar dancehall and the afropop songs released by these promising artistes have Highlife contents in them so should be under the highlife genre.

He disclosed that the campaign to make Highlife genre more active to compete with the Hip Pops, Reggae and others would focused more on organizing fora and meeting stakeholders to possibly brainstorm on how to make Highlife genre appealing to young artistes, presenters and Djs.

“Why can’t we expand the genre of Highlife brand and put the sub genres of Ghanaian music under Highlife after all we will not be the only country to first do that. When you talk about Reggae, they have root rock, ragga, dancehall, lovers rock and still call all these Reggae so we can do same.

“Any form of Ghanaian music should be put under the highlife brand so that the youth and all musicians can develop and in that scenario then we’ll claim our own Highlife title and use the Highlife banner to propel our traditional music.

“When you listen to their new type of songs they release everyday, it’s Highlife but some of them are calling is dancehall and afropop. Shatta has created his own type of Highlife because we’ve all ignored the Highlife music in a way. The young artistes see the Highlife genre as an old school and outmoded and they don’t want to associate with it. You can’t play Agbadza and call it Dancehall and you can’t play Highlife and call it dancehall.”