On a humid Tuesday night in Accra, Zen Garden is alive with sound and movement as Highlife melodies spill into the open air, drawing families, friends and office workers who sway long past midnight as if the weekend has come early.<\/p>\n
Under soft lights, the four young men of the Kwan Pa band strike layered guitar lines and lilting rhythms, prompting cheers as white handkerchiefs twirl above dancing heads. Couples glide across the floor, strangers move together and glasses clink between bites of food.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like therapy\u201d, one patron laughed, as a sound that has shaped Ghanaian life for generations fills the space.<\/p>\n
The charged atmosphere has taken on fresh meaning after Ghana\u2019s famed Highlife music was recently inscribed on Unesco\u2019s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The agency announced the decision on December 10, calling Highlife a \u201cmonumental expression of Ghana\u2019s musical genius, culture and global influence\u201d.<\/p>\n
For Asah Nkansah, leader of Kwan Pa \u2014 meaning \u201cthe right path\u201d \u2014 the timing is symbolic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you trace the origin of Highlife, it goes back to September 1925\u201d, he said. \u201cSo in 2025, we are celebrating 100 years of Ghanaian Highlife music\u201d.<\/p>\n
At Zen Garden, the century-old tradition feels anything but distant. Palm-wine-infused sets trigger spontaneous dancing, with patrons singing lyrics from memory deep into the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHighlife talks about everything \u2014 love, passion, social life\u201d, Nkansah said. \u201cIt has content. It\u2019s not music for music\u2019s sake\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unesco\u2019s listing places Highlife among the world\u2019s protected cultural treasures, highlighting a genre that has influenced hiplife and Afrobeats; and shaped Ghana\u2019s identity for more than a century.<\/p>\n
Back at Zen Garden, as midnight nears, the crowd shows no sign of leaving. Handkerchiefs rise again, laughter swells and Highlife carries on \u2014 rooted in the past, dancing into the future. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a humid Tuesday night in Accra, Zen Garden is alive with sound and movement as Highlife melodies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[11083,79,11081,11082,11084,6640,11085,11086,6587,929],"class_list":{"0":"post-17619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ghana","8":"tag-finds","9":"tag-ghana","10":"tag-ghanas","11":"tag-highlife","12":"tag-its","13":"tag-on","14":"tag-rhythm","15":"tag-stage","16":"tag-unesco","17":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}