Various: Highlife on the Move review – sophisticated stuff

By: Neil Spencer | The Guardian
Apr 6, 2015
1 min read

The archaeology of African pop keeps stretching backwards.

This two-CD compilation returns us to a fertile epoch when Ghanaian and Nigerian musicians were semi-resident in London, playing in mainstream and jazz bands while nurturing a brand of west African highlife that owed much to the Caribbean.

It was sophisticated stuff, with bandleaders like Ginger Johnson and Steve Rhodes making Afro-Calypso tunessuch as Brown Skin Girl and Drink a Tea, while a young Fela Kuti, his effervescence already apparent, cut his first sides.

The era, vividly captured in Colin Macinnes’ City of Spades, left its mark; Chris Ajilo’s Afro Mood sounds like prototype ska.