Hi-Life International

Perhaps one of the most prominent London-based rings through the UK’s mid-80s African music explosion, Hi-Life were founded with the Ghanaian guitarist Kwabena Oduro Kwarteng in 1982, performing a root base highlife design infused by details of Zairois and Congolese soukous. After a couple of months of fluctuating line-ups, the employees stabilized in past due 1982 to add fellow Ghanaians Sam Ashalley Ashley (percussion), Herman Asafo-Agyei (bass electric guitar) and Kofi Adu (drums), as well as South African Frank Williams (tenor saxophone) and Liverpudlian Stu Hamer (trumpet). Between them, the Ghanaian contingent got played with virtually every main Ghanaian highlife music group energetic between 1965 and 1975, and got come to the united kingdom pretty much individually in the middle-70s, hoping to create their mark around the worldwide music scene. For some time, with Hi-Life, it appeared as if these ambitions will be satisfied, as the group released two superb albums for London-based professional label Sterns, the debut Travel AND FIND OUT (accurately subtitled Music To Wake The Deceased) and its own follow-up, Na Wa FOR YOU PERSONALLY. Between 1983 and 1985 they toured nearly continuously in the united kingdom and European countries, and in 1984 Travel AND FIND OUT was released in america. Hi-Life’s crucial and specialist marketplace success didn’t result in mainstream approval and in 1986, in keeping with other UK-based African clothes, accelerating staff changes resulted in their break-up.