Highlife

[1] It uses the melodic and main rhythmic structures of traditional African music, but is typically played with Western instruments.

Mensah, Victor Uwaifo, all perfected this sound by infusing traditional Africa drums and western "Native Blues".

[1] After the Second World War its popularity came back within the Igbo people of Nigeria, taking their own traditional guitar riffs and the influence of the diverse culture and flavour of Nigeria, mixed and perfected it to form Igbo highlife which became the country's most popular music genre in the 1960s.

After these musicians saw how the West Indian regimental bandsmen practiced traditional music in their spare time it inspired them to do the same.

Mensah's older brother) told John Collins in 1973 that the term 'highlife' appeared in the early 1920s "as a catch-phrase for the orchestrated indigenous songs played at [exclusive] clubs by such early dance bands as the Jazz Kings, the Cape Coast Sugar Babies, the Sekondi Nanshamang and later the Accra Orchestra.

The people outside called it the highlife as they did not reach the class of the couples going inside, who not only had to pay a relatively high entrance fee of about 7s 6d (seven shillings and sixpence), but also had to wear full evening dress, including top-hats if they could afford it.

"[6] From the 1930s, highlife spread via Ghanaian workers to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Gambia among other West African countries, where the music quickly gained popularity.

As foreign troops departed, the primary audiences became increasingly Ghanaian, and the music changed to cater to their tastes.

Mensah's fame soared after he played with Louis Armstrong in Accra in May 1956, and he eventually earned the nickname, the "King of Highlife".

Economic problems led to a mass migration of Ghanaians in the 1960s looking for more opportunities and after that political instability in the '70s and '80s would cause more people and many prominent highlife musicians to leave and create clusters of communities across the west with Germany being a preferred destination because of its relaxed immigration laws.

[5] Ghanaians in Germany created a secular style of highlife that combined the genre with funk, disco, and synth-pop.

Its significance within the communities stems from the religious institution's ability to provide social and cultural infrastructure for the Ghanaian diaspora in Germany.