Highlife artiste Dada Hafco has suggested that if the Telecel Ghana Music Awards (TGMA) makes the Highlife Song of the Year category the highest award of the scheme, it will whip up musicians’ interest in doing highlife.

In an interview with Kwame Dadzie Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z, he said the TGMA is every influential brand that can be used to advance agenda such as this.

“I believe that the TGMA platform is one that people will malign and say all sorts of stuff about but it is a place where facts are established. If the TGMA comes to say this year the person who wins the ultimate is the one who wins the highlife song of the year, do you know how many people who would want to win the ultimate award? Do you know how many people who will start trumpeting the highlife agenda?" he asked.

He also advised people against mocking artistes that choose the highlife genre. According to him, a lot of younger musicians shy away from the genre because some people say negative and brutish things about it.

Recounting his personal experience, he mentioned that he has been described by some people as a 'villager' for doing highlife.

For music producer Wei Ye Oteng of Drumline Studios, the producers also have a role to play in helping preserve highlife.

“Producers, we set the pace. Producers can have an agenda and set the pace because guess what, if I get ten musicians and I send them a certain kind of beat and I know they will love it and within three four months those people are going to drop those songs and we promote them, trust me it becomes a trend. That’s how Azonto was made,” he said 

In the meantime, the President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bessa Simons, has also announced plans by the association to motivate highlife musicians.

According to him, MUSIGA will, from next year, award special prizes to winners of the highlife category in the Telecel Ghana Music Awards. 

Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z, the venerated highlife musicians said this is one of the strategies the union has put in place to help preserve the genre.

“One thing MUSIGA is doing to promote highlife is that next year, because we are partners with Telecel Ghana Music Awards, we are adding a special award to the person who wins the highlife category,” he said.

Asked if this prize will be in cash, he said: “it will be more than a cash prize.”

The conversation on reviving and preserving highlife has resurfaced after the announcement that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is in the process of making highlife an intangible cultural heritage of Ghana.

It as also been necessitated by Nigerians' tenacity in pushing the Afrobeats movement to get a global acclaim. For many Ghanaian highlife advocates, the genre which originated from Ghana holds the keys to Ghana's resurgence on the international music market.