22
Nov
0 Kom.
Ghana swings from morning until well after midnight to the tunes of Highlife Music. Ever since the heyday of colonialism, West African musicians have created a combination of typical Ghanaian beats with constantly changing Western influence:
From the rhythmical palm wine music of the 30s, Kwame Nkumah's national confession for dance band Highlife in the 50s, the exiled Ghanaian musicians in Germany in the 80s, to Hiplife-mix now.
In the 80s Burger Highlife was born in sound studios of Düsseldorf and Berlin where Ghanaian musicians - together with German sound engineers - created a sound mix of traditional Highlife with disco and funk.
The film tells the birth of this special fusion music with music hits and interviews.
The musicians are competing for the true and best highlife song with such as Ghana, Land of Freedom, Come to Africa, Money is Blood, Odo Beba, Ocean Wind, Tonight, Highlife Agogo, No Beer in Heaven, and others, thereby setting in motion feelings of homesickness and cosmopolitanism, moment and utopia, vitality and sense of reality.
What is the secret of Highlife?
If it is true that there are only three things that can alter a man's sense of himself - Religion, Sex and Drugs - what then is Highlife? According to the famous Highlife expert Professor John Collins there can be little doubt: Music is the carrier in the human brain which manipulates the soul and spirit.
The film "Who is Highlife?" was produced in the years 2007 and 2008 between the big concerts of the Goethe-Institut which took place in Accra „Made in Germany - Burger Highlife“.
UNERHÖRT! Musikfilmfestival Hamburg screens the music documentary "Who Is Highlife?" as a Hamburg premiere on 4th December at 22.30 h at zeise kinos.
For tickets please call: 040/390 87 70.
More Infos:
http://www.matzkakiener.de/matzkakiener.de/Who_is_Highlife.html
"Who is Highlife?"
With Nana Asamoah, Nana Aboagye Da-Costa, John Collins, George Darko, Lee Dodou, McGod, Bob Fiscian, Albert Jones, Daddy Lumba and Nana Acheampong (Lumba Brothers), Pat Thomas, Wulomei, Atongo Zimba...
CREDITS
Germany/Austria/Ghana - 2009
Support: FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF Bayern), Goethe-Institut, Government Upper Austria, Ghana Tourist Board
Production: Matzka-Kiener-Filmproduktion (D), Lampion Film (A) and Cinecon Africa (GH) limited
Format: DVCam / 106 Minuten
